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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 











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THE 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY: 



CONTAINING 



MORAL SENTIMENTS, 

AND 

PHILOSOPHIC REFLECTIONS; 

OR 

TEXTS AND SKELETONS, 

FOR THE CONTEMPLATION OF 

PENETRATING INTELLECTS, 
AND SEARCHERS AFTER TRUTH. 



BY I. B. SMITH. 

rf 



NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY H. D. ROBINSON, 94 CHATHAM STREET. 

1835. 



oo 



T«^r 



ERRATA. 

Page 6, tine 16, insert the word dictionary. 

27, " 1, for villainy, read viJlany, 

27, " 11, for villainous read villanous 

29, " 26, for possible read passible 

29, " 27, for impossible, read impassible. 

38, " 2, for nations ; read nations 

41, ■• 17,/or libeling read libelling 

42, " last word of the note, for societv. read 
I A society. 

W3- %> t 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1835,. 

BY H. D. ROBINSON, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of 

New-York. 



2-S&Z 



STEREOTYPED BY F. F. RIPLEY. 
NEW-YORK. 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE 

TO THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. 

We wish, at once, to inform the reader of this 
new edition of the Speculative Dictionary r , that 
the greatest part of it was published in England, 
in the year 1830, and that our inducements for 
now re-publishing it in this country are, first, the 
work being out of print, and, second, our hope 
of calling attention to many important subjects 
which have seldom met with that serious and 
philosophic consideration they ought to com- 
mand, — subjects which are treated here with 
perfect candour and without dogmatism. In- 
deed, we know of no modern author who might 
have appropriated more appositely to himself, 
Petrarch's modest Introduction to his Essay on 
Solitude : — 

"Believe me," says the mellifluous Bard of 
Italy, "it requires no little confidence to promise 
help to the struggling, counsel to the doubtful, 
light to the blind, hope to the despondent, re- 
freshment to the weary. These are indeed great 
things, if they be accomplished ; trifles if but in 
a promise. I however aim not so much to pre- 
scribe a law for others, as to set forth the law of 



4 PUBLISHERS PREFACE. 

my own mind; which let the man, who shall 
have approved of it, abide by ; and let him } to 
whom it shall appear not reasonable, reject it. 
It is my earnest wish, I confess, to employ my 
understanding and acquirements in that mode 
and direction, in which I may be enabled to 
benefit the largest number possible of my fellow 
creatures.* 

Such is the spirit, in our humble opinion, in 
which the Speculative Dictionary has been 
concocted. And yet, we doubt not but some in 
whose hands it may perchance fall will fault the 
author for the bold tone of free inquiry which 
is characteristic of the whole work. The fol- 
lowing anecdote which we have read, (we do 
not exactly remember where) may be applied to 
those persons; we therefore relate it for their 
especial benefit. 

The literary and liberal Earl of Shaftsbury 
meeting with a gentleman who had recently re- 
turned from travelling in the East, entered into a 



* Crede mihi, non est parvse fiduciae, polliceri opem de- 
certantibus consilium dubiis, lumen caecis, spem dejectis, 
refrigerium fessis. Magna quidem hsec sunt si fiant ; par- 
va, si promittantur. Verum ego non tarn aliis legem 
ponam, quam legem vobis meoe proprise mentis exponam; 
quam qui probaverit, teneat; cui non placuerit, abjiciat. 
Optarem, fateor, talis esse, qui prodesse possem quam piu* 
rimis. — Petrarch : De Vita Solitaries 



publisher's preface. 6 

conversation concerning a certain Mahomedan 
of rank whom the latter had visited, when his 
lordship asked, 

"Well, ^and how did you find him with re- 
gard to the wine-drinking and other religious 
observances?" 

"Oh," replied the traveller, "as I found many- 
others of the educated class. All who visit for- 
eign countries must at first 6 stand in the plague 
of custom.' When you have lived among the 
better informed long enough to be familiar, and 
to venture to advance beyond the ceremonious 
outworks which Oriental society set up, you dis- 
cover that the Turks drink wine with modera- 
tion, but without scruple ; and that they discourse 
liberally on religious subjects, occasionally laugh- 
ing at bigots of all sorts." 

"j Ah ! I always thought that sensible men 
were of the same religion all the world over," 
replied his lordship. 

"And pray, my lord, ^what religion is that?" 
inquired a lady who sat unobserved at her tam- 
bour frame. 

"; Hey !" rejoined lord Shaftsbury, upon whom 
the question was popped rather unexpectedly; 

"Why, madam sensible men never 

tell." 

1 Shaftsbury lived, comparatively speaking, in 

1* 



6 PUBLISHERS PREFACE, 

a dark age, and from the known motives, or the 
apprehended bigotry of the lady, it might have 
been imprudent in so wise a philosopher sud- 
denly replying, "Why, SCEPTICISM, madam." 
Happily for our present author, and also for 
the world at large, the time is past when most 
people could be scared away from examining 
opposing arguments by the mental cowardice of 
fearing to encounter any thing that might be 
contrary to tradition or pre-conceived opinion. 
With a majority, to hear all sides, is now the 
order of the day ; and it is not often that we 
meet with more peculiar information, sound 
reasoning, and ingenious speculations, than are 
displayed by the author of the speculative 

New York, May 31, 1835. 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE* 

.TO THE LONDON EDITION. 



Of the varied means of conveying instruction, none seems 
more efficient than the sententious expression of the criti- 
cisms and speculative opinions of a thoughtful individual, 
arranged under proper heads, and concisely treated. These 
become, in reality^ materials for thinking, in affording the 
means of comparing similar and different effects of thought, 
and in starting inquiry where it had not previously existed. 
The maxims of La Rochefoucault are eminent in this style 
of literature, and are recommended by Lord Chesterfield to 
his son as an every-day lesson. The reflections of the little 
work now presented to the inquisitive reader, are extended 
beyond the subject man ; but all relate to his welfare, in the 
aim to correct some of his erroneous notions. 

The author has had the modesty to put forth his reflec- 
tions, not all as positive conclusions, but as speculative sug- 
gestions. True philosophy does not consist so much of con- 
clusion, fixedness, and firm attachment in matters of opinion, 
as in freedom of inquiry, wherever doubt can be raised, or 
new sources and subjects for thought developed. In the 
freedom of his own inquiries, he has prepared a variety of 
matter for the construction of a larger work of this kind; 
but he proceeds with the caution of being desirous not to 
shock too freely the preconceived, though, perhaps, ill-con- 
ceived, notions of others, and has accordingly made selec- 
tions. The title sets forth, that the little treatises are offered 
only as " texts and skeletons/' by and upon which others may 
enlarge and improve. If the work be found useful, and, as 



8 PUBLISHER^ PREFACE, 

such, in demand, improved editions will appear. On one 
head the author may be comforted — his work can do no 
harm. 

The metaphysical and moral science which connects it- 
self so much with the present social condition of man, is yet 
but in a state of infancy. The priesthood has always dis- 
couraged it, and it now only rises in defiance of that order. 
The rapid changes of social condition, which are now being 
introduced into the Western States of Europe, will call forth 
the mental energies of its population, and make every little 
publication of this kind to be well-timed. The people once 
fairly taken out of the hands of the priesthood, and left to 
their own improvement by free inquiry, discussion, and mu- 
tual instruction, will display mental changes as rapidly and as 
gloriously as they are now displaying political changes, and 
bring a new moral force into the field of social regulation. 
Leaders are already, and long have been, industriously at 
work, but the mass must be moved. 

London, June 15, 1830. 



INDEX. 



Absurdity, 13 

Aerial Life, 13 

" All in All ' ( The great). . 14 

Almighty 15 

American 16 

Animal 19 

Anticipation 20 

Apprentice 21 

Atheist 22 

Atomist 23 

Attraction 23 

Authority (Aristocratic) ... 25 

Benevolence 25 

Bible . 26 

Catholicism 27 

Causation 28 

Cause and Effect 29 

Caution 30 

Censure 31 

Centripetal 32 

Characteristic 33 

Chemical and Mechani- 
cal... 33 

Chemistry 33 

Comet... 34 

Concentration (Alimen- 
tary) 34 

Congruity 35 

Conscience 35 

Contemptible 36 

Contrast (Mental) 36 

Coronation 37 

Coupling (Sexual) 37 

Creation 38 

Cruelty 38 

Death 39 

Deity (Suppositive). ...... 39 



Deity (A Secondary) 42 

Deism 42 

Delicacy (Fastidious) 44 

Design 44 

Desire 45 

Destiny 45 

Digestion 46 

Dress 46 

Drinking 46 

Duration 48 

Duty 48 

Education ( Veridical) 48 

Enjoyment (Physical and 

Intellectual) 50 

Enjoyment (Intellectual) . . .50 

Eternal 51 

Evil (Natural) 52 

Excellence (Elements of).. 53 

Faith 53 

Fallibility 53 

Fashion 54 

Friendship 55 

Frost (Effects of) 56 

Fruition 57 

Gangrene (Moral) 58 

Grossness, Or Heat 58 

Happiness (Senile) 59 

Hen-Roost 61 

Hereafter 62 

History 62 

Hurry 64 

Imbecility ( Theislical) 65 

Imbecility (Christian) 66 

Imagination 67 

Imposture 68 

Impotence ( Theological) . . 68 
Imprudence 68 



10 



INDEX. 



Increase {Speculation) .... 69 

Inexperimental ,69 

Infinity 70 

Intellect 70 

Interest {Self) 71 

Intoxication {Mental) 72 

Invention 72 

Judgment 73 

Justice 73 

Knowledge 73 

Labour. 73 

Laws 74 

Learning 75 

Light.. 75 

Lightning 70 

Light. Heat. Sound 76 

Love {Sexual) 77 

Lunar 79 

Machinery 80 

Man {Intellectual) . . 81 

Marriage 84 

Martyrdom 86 

Materialism 88 

Matter 88 

Memory 89 

Mind 93 

Misanthropy {Compara- 
tively justifiable) 95 

Misery {Natural) 96 

Monarchy 97 

Money {Saving of) 98 

Motion {Astronomical,' 

<K) S-100 

Nature 103 

Optimity 103 

Orbit Ellipsis {Specula- 
tion) 104 

Paradise 106 

Passionless 107 

Patriotism 107 

Patronage {Public) 108 

Penmanship 109 

Perfectibility {Human) . . .113 

Permutation 113 

Persecution 113 

Philosophy {Moral) ,114 



Philosophy {General) 114 

Politics 116 

Politeness 116 

Population {British) 117 

Potentiality {Material) . . .124 

Prayer 126 

Precepts 127 

Predicament 128 

Prejudice {Public) 128 

Pride {Aristocratic) 129 

Privilege 129 

Problematical 131 

Progression {Mental} 132 

Projectile {Mundane) 133 

Promises 133 

Providence {Superhu- 

7rtan) 134 

Punishment 134 

GLuery 135 

Question 135 

Reading Public. 137 

Reason 138 

Reflection {Mental) 138 

Follies and evils through 

a want of reflection .... 139 

Reform 142 

Religion 142 

Reputation . . . i 144 

Respectability.. 144 

Rights 144 

Rivers 146 

Revolution ( Glorious) 146 

Sanity 149 

Sectarism 149 

Seeing 150 

Self-Explicative 150 

Sensation 152 

Senses 152 

Sententious 153 

Soul 156 

Speculation {Creative) . . . 156 

Speculation {Solar) 158 

Speech {Power of) 159 

Spirits {Animal) 160 

Street-Walking 161 

Suicide 162 



11 



Superstition 165 

Susceptibility 166 

Sympathy {Hypothetical) . 167 

Taste 168 

Teaching 169 

Testiness 170 

Thanksgiving ( General 

and Particular) 171 

Theism 17*2 

Theists 173 

Theocracy 174 

Thirst 174 

Thought 175 

Tides (Equinoctial) 177 

Time 177 



Toasts (Political^ Senti- 
mental and Humane). . . 179 

Torture 181 

Trinity 182 

Truth (Love of) 182 

Undefinable 184 

Ungracious 184 

Uniformity ( Terraqucous)lS4 

Veracity ( Clerical) 186 

Veridical ( Unpopular). . . 186 

Vitality 189 

Weather (European).. . . 191 

Will (Free) 193 

Youth (Advice to) 195 

Zenith (Pater) 198 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 



ABSURDITY. 

Principles, habits, customs, and all things, 
or products of art, which in their consequences 
are opposed to the principles, or modes, actions, 
and existences of nature, or which essentially 
lead to a deterioration of a simple and natural 
state of existence, are essentially absurd; for 
in the ratio of incongruity to nature, exists 
the ratio of absurdity ; because that which is 
natural cannot be absurd, nature being the true 
test of absurdity. 

A thousand instances might be pointed out, 
to illustrate and show how extensive is the 
range of absurdity ; especially among the un- 
thinking votaries of fashion and prejudice. 

AERIAL LIFE. 

Although the subtile matter which floats on 
the surface of a warm and rarefied clime, is in- 
tactable to human nerves, yet it contains ani- 
mated beings of various species ; and if their 
powers of touch and vision are delicate in pro- 
portion to the minuteness of their perceptive 
organisms, then thev can. of course, visually 
2 



14 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

and tactilly perceive portions of matter much 
less, or more minute than their own bodies. 
Consider, then, how sublimely minute must be 
the corpuscles of the fluids which circulate 
through the ramified vessels of their corporeal 
frame. 

"ALL IN ALL." (The great.) 

Progression and retrogression seem to be 
accidents of matter, as regards its compound 
modes or identities (which pervade the uni- 
verse) ; while elementary atomic identity appa- 
rently must remain indefinitely durable. 

All the chemical or mechanical* actions, 
mineral arrangements, and vegetable pheno- 
mena in the universe, are essential results of 
the compositive affections of matter ; while the 
multifarious circumstances which universal 
sensation sustains, are contingent effects, or 
links of a continuous chain determined only by 
a mixed, or physical, mental and moral neces- 
sity ; for the sublimest conception or acutest 
reason cannot discover or admit the existence 
of an INFINITE WILL, or designing omnis- 
cient director ; MATTER and SPACE being 
the " All in All f at least, all that is cognizable 
to the highest known intelligence ; and which 
matter is constantly, but blindly or designlessly, 
creating and destroying its own identities, (or 
beautiful existences, as they are generally term- 
ed,) through the subtil agency of atomic motion, 



* Nature's, not animal mechanical action, **&A 






SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 15 

ALMIGHTY. 

I cannot perceive the possibility of an 
almighty power. An almighty power must be 
an absolute and independent power ; conse- 
quently must be superior to all other powers 
put together, which still could not be almighty ; 
and there cannot be an absolute power in exist- 
ence ; the powers of definite beings annul it, 
and render the very idea absurd. 

The system of the universe appears to me to 
be a vast and pure republic ; therefore, if we 
admit that it is governed by an absolute or su- 
per-material power, this great and universal prin- 
ciple of matter and space must be totally anni- 
hilated. 

I Is there a truly rational man, who will ven- 
ture to say, that he believes in the existence of 
an almighty power, after he has reflected^ and 
glanced into what we term infiniteness, as far 
as the human faculties can possibly reach, both 
in regard to ponderous extent and diminutive- 
ness? — the human mind cannot grasp the 
former, nor satisfactorily reach the latter ; i for 
who can conceive any space, or thing so mi- 
nute, as not to have different parts, or that can- 
not be divided, and still have opposite sides, and 
which of course imply further division ? The 
utmost bounds of my reason cannot perceive 
any powers, or single power, that is not in- 
herent in or derived from matter. And, al- 
though matter may be considered infinite, ^yet 
who can discover an infinite will? Reason 



16 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

cannot perceive an independent or underived 
power, except that inherent in matter. 

I consider the universe one vast laboratory, 
whose operations are eternally in action, and 
producing visible and invisible effects ; and if 
we study Nature under this impression, doubt- 
less we shall make progress in useful know- 
ledge and genuine philosophy, and duly approx- 
imate truth, and derive benefit in a ratio with 
the intensity of our ardour and exertion. 

AMERICAN. 

To speak generally, the Americans have an 
insatiable propensity for avaricious speculations, 
while they seem to dislike every kind of philo- 
sophic projection and refined speculation. If 
the moral principles, domestic habits, and cus- 
toms of the American people had been as philo- 
sophic, pure, and good, as their political princi- 
ples and government, half the civilized nations 
of the world would have, ere now, become 
republics ; or the soil of America well peopled 
from various monarchical states, merely through 
the force of such a delightful and inspiring 
moral example. 

In a domestic point of view, a majority of the 
Americans appear to be unacquainted with, or 
are indifferent to, the importance of philoso- 
phic, or the most useful kinds of elegance, and 
exquisite enjoyments — although nature and 
their principles of government offer them the 
means of realizing the highest state of human 
happiness. And hence, therefore, I have full 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY- 17 

confidence that they will improve in every im- 
portant and useful mode ; for some excellent 
seed has recently been scattered and taken root 
among them, and doubtless; in a very few 
years, they will become the most enlightened, 
wise, powerful j and happy nation in the world. 
Indeed, several of the important branches of art 
and science are already practised to a far 
greater degree of perfection than in any other 
part of the globe. 

But population and improvement do not pro- 
gress in the Southern States in the same ratio 
with those in the North, because, in the South, 
the principal part of the people are devoted 
either to the sentiment, "a short life and a 
merry one f or involved in the baneful mists of 
lugu brious superstition . Nevertheless, there 
are several existences and circumstances con- 
nected with the American character, particu- 
larly in the Southern States, quite worthy of 
admiration ; and any enlightened and observ- 
ing person would be highly gratified by making 
a tour of nine or ten thousand miles in this very 
interesting and variously picturesque country. 

On my arrival in the United States, I was 
astonished to find the people so far behind and 
inferior to their political principles and govern- 
ment : and I was quite unable to discover how 
such an avaricious spirit had originated amongst 
them, and had more or less pervaded the whole 
nation ; but after some observation and reflec- 
tion upon their actions and habits, I came to a 
conclusion, by supposing that the small quantity 
of money in this immense country, of various 
2" 



18 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

climates and abundant productions of different 
kinds, offered and produced enormous profits to 
dealers in general : consequently, nearly every 
man became infected with the desire of possess- 
ing as much money as would enable him to be- 
come a dealer : and here, in times past, a very 
small sum sufficed for this object; and this 
point being gained, even on the smallest scale, 
the parties forthwith abandoned their much 
more honest and honourable pursuits of agricul- 
ture and manufacture. Thus America became 
a nation of dealers ; and hence the cultivation 
of the soil was little attended to. and still less 
respected, because it did not exhibit that pom- 
pous, but vice-generating show of wealth, which 
generally and naturally accompanies the avari- 
cious spirit of dealing : for it is an incontroverti- 
ble fact, that a thirst for mere dealing generates 
any thing but a virtuous disposition and a no- 
bleness of mind. This spirit of dealing introdu- 
ced nearly all the expensive follies and vices of 
the old world into the new, (where greater fa- 
cilities existed for the practice of sly villany,) 
and hence sprang an excessive passion for sordid 
riches. Thus an inordinate love of money, 
" the root of all evil,"* and which is an essential 
fruit of the spirit of dealing, became an epidemic 
curse through this young, but extensive nation. 
The love of money is not essentially con- 
nected with the love of natural enjoyments, nor 
does it lead to them; but a general thirst for 



* There is no sentiment nor fact more true in the whole 
Bible. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 19 

money leads to domestic strife, and ultimate 
misery. 

Perhaps it will be said that dealers are neces- 
sary in civilized nations : I admit it. and main- 
tain, that there would no evil spring from the 
activity of the necessary number, (which, com- 
paratively; is very small.) for these would be 
equitable and honourable dealers. — It is quite a 
mistaken notion, although a general one, that 
the public are benefited in a ratio with the in- 
creased number of dealers. It is evident that 
the quality of many commodities receive injury 
by passing through an unnecessary number 
of hands, and the prices are heightened by it, 
while, at the same time, the profits to each indi- 
vidual dealer are lessened. 

There should be more persons engaged in all 
kinds of useful employment, in place of idling 
away their time in re-re-re-tail shops, which is 
now an employment in some countries very 
little superior to that of a professed mendicant : 
and I cannot conceive how the great Napoleon 
could have justly applied a more degrading 
epithet to the English* than he did, when he 
was incited to call them " a nation of shop- 
keepers." 

ANIMAL. 

An animal is a natural machine, possessing, 
in a physical point of view, vast powers of pro- 
pagating and diffusing motion and heat. Inter- 
nally, by its pulmonary action, or vital circula- 
tion ; and externally, by its locomotive power, 
or muscular leverage. In a moral and inteb 



20 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY, 

lectual point of view, one species, at least, is ca- 
pable of developing faculties of indefinite great- 
ness, and sublime penetration ; for instance, 
comparative imagination, discovery, invention, 
design, lastly, oscillatory reflect ion ; and hence 
progressive improvement to human perfectibility. 
Yet, by a fatal direction and application of these 
inestimable moral and intellectual capabilities, 
thi^ same species has, in times past, rendered its 
character inexpressibly ridiculous and loath 
some. 

/,But what is the present obstacle in the way 
of human perfectibility ? If I may be allowed 
to express my conviction, the great obstacle cen- 
tres in the practice of attributing trifling and 
important effects, modes, and existences to de- 
sign, but with which productions design has 
nothing to do. Hence a variety of unnatural 
impulses spring ; generating erroneous opinions, 
and upon which religious dogmas are founded ; 
and, lastly, to those established dogmas and 
rites, unjust awards and baneful responsibilities 
are appended. 

These are the propagating, diffusing, and con- 
tinuing causes of the moral plague of the world. 

ANTICIPATION. 

There are many demonstrable truths, con- 
nected with human nature, and social existence, 
but which are comparatively little thought of or 
understood ; yet, however, they are of vital im- 
portance to the rationally refined portion of our 
species being so closely interwoven with our 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 21 

deepest interests, or involving the proximate 
causes of both happiness and misery ; for, through 
the medium of desire, anticipation, and hope, 
the reflective, humane, and intellectually deli- 
cate, experience a far greater amount of enjoy- 
ment, or pleasurable sensations and ideas, than 
can be realized in the actual possession of those 
specious and promising objects which are so ar- 
dently desired by highly-cultivated, intelligent 
beings. And such sensuous and intelligent in- 
dividuals, through the influence of dread and 
fear, are also susceptible of, and actually suffer 
a greater amount of painful sensation, or misery, 
than they do in the realization of dreaded cir- 
cumstances and anticipated evils. 

APPRENTICE. 

If parents and guardians were more wise, and 
only incited youth to habitudes of reflection, the 
main object in their choice of a profession, or 
respectable means of obtaining a competency 
during life, would be the discovery of that one 
which would render the necessary time to be spent 
in the practice of it both comfortable and pleasing. 
If this were generally attended to, a vast in- 
crease of happiness would be the result ; and an 
equal ratio of improvement and perfection in the 
various branches of art and science. 

But, wise decision and conduct, with botli old 
and young, exist as rarely as diamonds in a 
brick-field ; and this is because general reflec- 
tion is the important desideratum of the present 
generation, 



22 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

It is a pity, if not a lack of wisdom, to bring 
up a really ingenious and clever boy to the pro- 
fession of the law, unless there is great proba- 
bility of his becoming a legislator. 

ATHEIST. 

A well-grounded atheist is a person who 
has arrived at a high degree of physical and 
moral knowledge ; * or, in other words, has ap- 
proximated very important truths ; or one who 
believes less, but knows more than theists ; or 
one who honestly confesses his ignorance of 
that which theists pretend to know. But, in 
truth, on the other hand, i is a man really not 
an atheist, because he has faith in the specious 
pretensions of a system of religion? as well 
might we say a fool is really wise, because he 
thinks, says, and really believes himself to 
be so. 

Atheism being a negation, before a person 
can justly affirm it to be an errour, it is essential 
for him to be able fully to demonstrate its false- 
hood or bad foundation, by adducing a clear 
and absolute knowledge of its antithesis. Whe- 
ther theists can, or cannot do this, I leave them 
to decide ; but to me it appears, that before a 
man can really be a theist, he must necessa- 
rily have some correct and absolute knowledge 
of a being or existence, the ignorance of which 
constitutes the true ground or foundation of 
atheism. 



* It should be remembered, that the knowledge of a moral 
truth does not always insure the practice of it. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 23 

ATOMIST. 

When a person has reflected sufficiently to 

become an atomist, and plenitudhmrian, or, at 
least, reasoned long enough to place some confi- 
dence in corpuscular philosophy, he is then in 
no great danger of being cajoled by theological 
sophists, into an apparent, or outward respect 
for a superstition and idolism, from the bewil- 
dering, stultifying, and loathsome bonds of 
which he has probably but so recently been ex- 
tricated. Nor is he again very liable to be 
duped in any way, by the specious principles 
and pretensions of any vaunting system of theo- 
logy or superstition. Indeed, I consider that 
when a person has began to reflect deeply and 
abstractly upon the nature and relations of 
atoms, he has then set a most important step in 
the road to useful knowledge and genuine phi- 
losophy, or physical and moral truth; and 
which alone can conduct man to a life of ex- 
alted virtue, wisdom, and rational happiness. 

ATTRACTION. 

It was not only weak, and beneath an as- 
tronomer, but derogative of the character of a 
person of common pretensions to reflective pow- 
ers, to ascribe the flow of the tides to the attrac- 
tive power of the moon. As, upon this hypothe- 
sis, it would appear that the mundane waters 
were possessed of visual powers and qualities 
analogous to those of an enamoured man, who 
is at first slightly excited on beholding a small 



24 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

portion of a beautiful woman, and who, by re- 
gular progress, ultimately exposes her whole 
front form to his gazing view ; and, in conse- 
quence of which, he becomes enraptured with 
her, and every corpuscle of his frame is necessa- 
rily excited into motion towards her — but as she 
soon gradually wanes and vanishes from his 
view, his passion for her wanes also — yet he is 
still faintly affected by her, until she almost hides 
her bright form from him, and then, all of a sud- 
den, he obscurely beholds her whole front again ; 
but the greatest part of her body is now clad in 
hoary mourning, yet, as a woman is lovely and 
attractive in that habiliment, he is again equally 
attracted by her circular, though less lustrous 
figure — but as she progressively casts off her 
mourning dress, his passion for her once more 
gradually increases, until her bridish and lily- 
like splendour approximates completion ; when 
he again, as it were, rushes towards her extended, 
chaste, and pearly bosom : for if the tides of the 
ocean were really attracted by the moon, they 
would uniformly (or nearly so) flow towards her 
during the whole of her orbit around the mun- 
dane sphere ; but which is evidently not the fact, 
as it is clear that she has little or no effect upon the 
ocean at her quarters, or when she is one week 
and three weeks old, as the common phrase is. 

^ If it be pretended that the sun counteracts the 
moon's attractive force at these points of her 
orbit by his attractive powers, then why are not 
the tides heavier at the new than they are at the 
full moon, when his mighty pulling power is 
added to hers ? Answer this, ye asserters of the 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 25 

truth of the theory of the attractive attributes of 
matter. 

I do not admit the existence of any gross or 
universal principle of attraction in matter. There 
appears to be a chemical, mechanical, and atomic 
affinity, or cohesive attraction, when various 
elementary corpuscles are in absolute contact, 
but no aggregate and universal attraction. Hence 
the word attraction, when philosophically used, 
is applicable only in a moral or metaphysical 
sense ; because, all merely physical or insensate 
motion must have a material propelling cause ; 
or, to use a very common term, a shoving-cause ; 
while all chemical motion takes place through 
contact, consequently cannot be from attraction ; 
and I feel confident that it can be satisfactorily 
proved that matter, when void of the influence 
of sensation, is quite destitute of attractive power. 

AUTHORITY. {Aristocratic.) 

Human patiency ought always to be in the 
ratio of moral ignorance : while authority, or 
commanding influence, should always be in the 
ratio of wisdom, and the love of truth. Upon 
this principle, we may conceive and justly 
admit an aristocratic authority which is corn- 
portable with genuine morality and pure re- 
publicanism. 

BENEVOLENCE, 

Many persons obtain a high reputation for 
benevolence who, in truth, have no just claim 
3 



26 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

to such an exalted character ; for on a close ex- 
amination of their vaunted benevolent perform- 
ances, we shall find them to be no more than 
ostentatious acts of self-interest and self-gratifi- 
cation ; or, to make the most of them, they are 
but liberal donations to particular and favourite 
persons, or for the propagation of visionary 
schemes, baneful systems of theology and super- 
stition r to which they are partially attached. 

But how different and amiable the character 
proves when we trace the actions to the mo- 
tives of the truly benevolent and humane ; for 
here we discover that the happiness of these 
centre in the well-being of others ; and hence, 
such as justly merit the exalted appellation will 
always be more or less unhappy whenever they 
behold others involved in trouble and misery. 
And should these sympathizing hearts once per- 
ceive that their pleasure is in the least degree 
productive of painful sensation to any portion 
of sensitive existence, it must instantly cease to 
be enjoyment to them; for true and practical 
benevolence cannot be limited to the human 
race, but will ever feel for all grades of the sen- 
sitive universe. 

BIBLE. 

If a skilful and designing knave embrace the 
advantages which the Bible offers, (and study 
its contents, as inspiring motives and impelling 
means for practising baleful deception,} he may 
be sure of succeeding in his holy fraudulent de- 
signs ; for human nature is capable of scarcely 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 27 

one species of vice or villainy, which this " Book 
of books" will not suggest and divinely sanc- 
tion ; hence it is, that ingenious expositions of 
its contents always procure for such sacred in- 
terpreters numerous bands of enthusiastic dupes, 
upon whose weak, but highly excited minds, 
these divinely inspired expositors can ultimately 
converge, with specious solemnity, all the seem- 
ingly-divine suggestions of the Bible ; and, in 
consequence of which, they easily practise all 
their villainous designs with impunity. 

All the deductions of reason and philosophy, 
both physical and moral, stamp the mark of 
allegory, fable, or imposture upon the character 
of the Bible. 

CATHOLICISM. 

That Catholicism produces very few ma- 
niacs, when compared with the number result- 
ing from Protestantism, is evident enough to a 
careful observer ; and the cause of this differ- 
ence is also pretty clear to such an observer ; 
for when Catholics are unusually and exces- 
sively excited by religion, they generally seek 
in some superstitious clausure that wonted men- 
tal quietude which the open and partially rea- 
soning world refuse to nearly all punctilious 
Christians, and superstitionists in general : — 
while, on the other hand, the Protestant, who 
having once been by the vehemence of religious 
dogmas goaded to reflect deeply upon its rites, 
duties and consequences, still mixes with gene- 
ral society, and thus from the effects of the same 



S8 S?£Ct)LA'TiVE DICTiONAttY, 

goading principle, continues to reflect, and en- 
deavours to reason upon a thing or mood of 
mind) which is in its very nature essentially 
irrational ; and thus it is, that he in the sequel 
necessarily becomes either a boated fanatic, a 
hopeless idiot, or an incurable madman. There- 
fore, if it be essential that some dogma of Chris- 
tianity should be kept up. in order to hold the 
multitude in awe, as some philosophers think, 
or say, then, from my knowledge of the dif- 
ferent effects produced upon a whole people, by 
these two militating branches of superstition, I 
hesitate not a moment to declare in favour of 
the Catholic ; that is, if it be determined that 
one of these sects of Christianity shall make part 
and parcel of the laws of a nation ; or where 
the law shall not allow it to be assailed by every 
strong mode of argument, and the full force of 
reasoning. 

CAUSATION. 

It certainly is natural enough for those who 
have only just began to think upon the nature 
of causation, to ascribe the cause of all orga- 
nized existences that are beyond the reach of 
the highest present intellectual power of man, 
to some great designing creator; because, 
ignorant and comparatively unreflecting per- 
sons conclude, that all unknown or undefinable 
causes must have an intelligent author. This 
infantile-imbibed notion may, probably, derive 
some force, in manhood, through a natural dis- 
position in such unreflecting persons for semi- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 29 

deifying signalized and mentally superior men, 
whose intellectual fruits arc so much above the 
common inventive and imitative powers of the 
species, that it seems not so very unnatural and 
strange that these persons should conclude that 
an intelligent power is absolutely essential for 
the production of the stupendous phenomena 
of the universe ; but, on the other hand, because 
a philosopher is ignorant of the real cause of 
many modifications of matter and. motion, ^is it 
a distinguishing mark of deep penetration, or 
mature reflection and profound wisdom, for 
him also to subscribe to the same, or a similar 
conclusion ? I think not ; but rather, a proof 
of a lack of sagacity to discover the true means 
of tracing an effect to its proximate .cause, in 
the subtil and drastic actions of the elementary 
atoms of matter. 

CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

It would be absurd to suppose that every effect 
has not its own peculiar cause. Yet there are 
existences which to say they must have had a 
cause is unphilosophic and truly absurd. The va- 
rious phenomena that constitute the active series 
of the universe have their peculiar causes, and are 
all periodically possible existences ; but the 
series itself in relation to time, is impossible. 
For we cannot rationally admit the possibility 
of either a beginning or an end of the existence 
of matter, space, or time; therefore, they are 
each UNCAUSED existences, and consequently 
eternal. And as these elements now possess 
3* 



# 



30 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

adequate properties and powers to sustain the 
phenomena of the universe, it is but rational to 
conclude that they have always possessed and 
will continue to possess them. 

CAUTION. 

If the paramount desire and object of the hu- 
man species be real comfort and genuine happi- 
ness, they must neither love money nor idolize 
expensive and showy clothes ; because the des- 
potism of dress and fashion renders those uncom- 
fortable whose circumstances would otherwise 
enable them to be eminently happy. And the 
love of money, not having its source in any one 
of the senses, or natural wants, has not the 
power of satisfying the passion of its lover. And 
farther, when this artificial passion has infected 
all classes of society, it fails not to generate in 
them a mean strife, and ultimately maintains a 
most ceaseless warfare among a people, who be- 
come by it either rich, arrogant, and tyrannical, 
or miserably poor and slavish. Such are the 
fruits of the love of sordid riches. 

A nation cannot be either virtuous or happy, 
while there is in it a universal thirst and strug- 
gle for sordid riches, (for it is a great truth, that 
"the love of money is the root of all evil,") 
THERE BEING only a definite quantity of 
money in existence to supply all ; consequently 
he who gains must necessarily take from others : 
while, on the other hand, we may all crave vir- 
tue and wisdom, and possess them unlimitedly, 
and be happy, without in the least depriving 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 31 

others. Indeed, the more persons there are striv- 
ing after the possession of these, the more easy 
they each become obtainable by all ; for those 
who are virtuous and successful pursuers of 
wisdom and happiness, are all so many facilita- 
ting guide-marks to others who are in search of 
happiness. But it is widely different with re- 
gard to the pursuers and lovers of money, for 
they are all obstacles to each other, and hence 
no better than mutual enemies. We should dis- 
tinguish the desire of comfort and genuine hap- 
piness from the desire and love of money ; for 
the consequences and results are widely dif- 
ferent. A general desire for wealth and all kinds 
of rational enjoyment constitutes a principal 
cause of the splendour and greatness of nations ; 
but it is the love of money, in place of the love 
of peace and elevated enjoyments, that consti- 
tutes the principal cause of their decline and 
wretchedness. 

CENSURE. 

If we are philosophic and wise, and if we also 
justly discriminate between the various circum- 
stances which act upon different individuals, 
who may be censured for their public or private 
conduct, we shall discover that censure is not 
always just, when exactly proportioned to the 
measure of the real folly of decisions and ac- 
tions. Hence, I maintain, that no one can have 
a rational and unpitying right to censure the 
apparent blindness and stupidity, or even vices 
of any of the human race, except those of his 



32 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

own generation and country ; or such as exist 
under similar political, scientific, and other im- 
portant moral relations : for we ought not to ex- 
pect to find a society, both wise and virtuous, 
which is composed of persons who have spent 
all their time in a country that is under the in- 
fluence of laws and customs which were framed 
and established by unwise, superstitious, and 
ignorant legislators. 

But, on the other hand, only give a nation a 
code of pure, just, and consistent laws, and let 
them be rigorously and impartially adminis- 
tered, and its inhabitants will soon become both 
\*ise, virtuous, and equitable. 

CENTRIPETAL. 

I think the rotary motion of the sphere may 
be the main cause of the centripetal force of 
dense bodies ; the matter of the globe being (as 
regards its orbicular motion) only a patient of 
circumambient fluid matter : therefore I cannot 
see why the dense should move faster than the 
light bodies ; for it is only in projectiles that 
such phenomena are exhibited. Yet, I confess, 
the phenomenon of the tides is rather at vari- 
ance with this view of the subject. 

There is some analogy between a coacervated 
mass of matter naturally revolving in and by 
the force of a fluid medium, and a concrete body 
artificially rolled between iioo pieces of matter 
which are more dense and solid, both being pro- 
ductive of compression. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY- 33 

CHARACTERISTIC 

When nature is allowed her free and unso- 
phisticated course, every feature of the face, tone 
of voice, and motion of address, is subservient to, 
and characteristic of, the feelings of the heart 
Thus, in an instant, we may learn the emotions 
of the perceptive frame, and taste or know the 
pains and pleasures of others whom we see and 
hear. 

CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL. 

It appears to me that chemical and mechan- 
ical powers are the only agents of all the natural 
productions or phenomena in the universe ; and, 
indeed, the former involves the latter, or in other 
words, is the primary or parent of all other 
powers. Or chemical and mechanical powers 
may be reciprocally, and alternately, cause and 
effect ; as matter under mechanical force causes 
aggregation of matter ; and then chemical action 
follows, and the matter is again diffused by it, 
and again acts mechanically, and ; vice V?ys(?i 
eternally. 

CHEMISTRY. 

Chemistry is the science of infinity, (or di- 
vinity, if this term suits better,) for it must ever 
remain susceptible of progressive improvement. 
Or, if human intellect should, by persevering ex- 
perience, ultimately arrive at absolute perfection 
in the science of chemistry, man will then be 



34 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY; 

able to form animals, and, when thus organized, 
endow them with vitality, or the essential means 
for the development of sensation, perception, in- 
telligence, &c. 

COMET. 

The phenomena of comets once led me to 
concejve that they might be partially ignited 
spheres, or upon one polar hemisphere, (if they 
have an axis and revolve.) which, therefore, 
might prevent them having perfect vortical mo- 
tions, or uniform orbits, as the ignited hemis- 
phere would naturally propel the other pole for- 
ward ; and thus, having a degree of independent 
motion, or individual power of moving, they 
would not be altogether governed by the sun's 
vortical influence, but would alternately, or 
sometimes, move within, and at others without, 
the plane or centre of the sun's vortex, or the 
zodiac ; and consequently, the action of the two 
forces would produce eccentric orbits, &c. 

CONCENTRATION (Alimentary). 

It is, in general, an unnatural concentration 
of certain elements, that constitutes succulent, 
nutritious, and highly exciting aliments, and an 
undue portion of those of an opposite nature that 
form debilitating food and liquors. It is the 
same with regard to medicines and poisons ; yet 
it must be allowed that there are many effica- 
cious balms, cordials, and medicines, as well as 
drastic poisons, which are all unsophisticated 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 35 

existences of nature — the qualities of which, 
the animal man has not sufficient sense to dis- 
cover intuitively; while what we term brute 
animals evince a perfect sense or knowledge of 
the nature, or good and ill effects of all these 
things, consequently they take the beneficial, 
and avoid the deleterious ones ; and in these 
respects they show their natural superiority 
over the human species. 

CONGRUITY. 

We should always designate feelings, quali- 
ties, and things, by the most appropriate terms 
that language affords. 

Indelicate and villanous actions cannot be ex- 
pressed in too strong, coarse, and severe words. 
Nor, on the other hand, are there any terms too 
delicate, pathetic, or refined, to express fine feel- 
ings, important ideas, or virtuous designs and 
actions. 

CONSCIENCE. 

Experience is alone the developing cause 
of human conscience. But all consciences are 
not correct, nor conscientious actions productive 
of good ; because they do not all proceed from 
the right source, a correct knowledge of nature, 
and the relations of universal sensation, upon 
which alone we can found correct morals. Su- 
perstition and false morals generate various 
shades of mischievous conscience. 



36 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

CONTEMPTIBLE. 

A large portion of the human species exhibj 
all the weaknesses of a herd of sheep, but exis 
without showing scarcely any of their lovely in 
nocences and lambent qualities.* 

CONTRAST {Mental) 

Christian, picture to yourself the racking 
sensations of a man of keen susceptibility, who 
has been, for a length of time, wandering with- 
out a rational, or even satisfactive guide, in a 
most horrific, deserted wilderness, where every 
fresh step must necessarily be fraught with 
dreadful apprehensions. Change the scene, and 
now view him, as by the merest accident, just 
escaped from this dreadful situation, into perfect 
corporeal safety, mental peace, and comparative 
comfort. Certainly, you will say, the contrast 
of his feelings must be great and overwhelming 
in these opposite states of excitement. Then, I 
respond and add, that the contrast of feeling is 
not less striking, vivid, or powerful, to a man of 
delicate moral sensibility, who has been, for a 
length of time, a sincere and deep-reflecting 
Christian, but who has just emerged from this 
mental thraldom, and become a well-informed 
materialist. Hence, the attempt to persuade a 
well-grounded materialist to return to the belief 
that Christianity is founded in truth, would be 

* The principal object of my abrupt periods is to excite 
and increase individual reflection, which, if effected, can- 
not fail to produce improvement in society. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 37 

as vain, fruitless, and unreasonable, as it would 
be to expect a man to retrograde to a certain pe- 
riod of his past existence ; because, as the one is 
absolutely impossible, so is the other philosophi- 
cally impossible ; that is, so long as he contiziues 
to exercise his reasoning faculty upon the matter ; 
and when a man ceases to reflect and reason upon 
subjects of importance, his theories and opinions 
are of no rational weight, or philosophic conse- 
quence. 

CORONATION. 

A coronation is one of the numerous ex- 
travagant evils, and absurd, farcical results of 
the principle of monarchy. It is a pompous and 
useless ceremony, — an ostentatious display of 
public wealth, wrung from the industry of a na- 
tion. The sum of public money squandered at 
the coronation of George the Fourth, being no 
less than two millions sterling, was alone more 
than equal to an entire year's public expenditure 
of the United Republican States of America, 
which have a population equal to that of Eng- 
land, and weZZ-conducted government establish- 
ments spread over an extent of country, at least 
twenty times greater than that of Britain. 

COUPLING {Sexual). 

If a degree of skill, reflection, and judgment 

were adopted towards the coupling of the human 

sexes, similar to that which is so widely and 

carefully practised in regard to many of the in- 

4 



*3b SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

ferior animals, in highly civilized countries, and 
by the same nations ; also, in relation to the 
propagation and improvement of trees, vegeta- 
bles, <fcc; doubtless the human species would, 
in the course of a few generations, become very 
much improved, both in a physical and intellec- 
tual point of view, and probably as superior to 
what it is at present, as a pippin is to a crab, or 
an Orleans plum to a sloe. 

CREATION. 

The hypothesis of a beginning of motion, and 
that of a beginning of the existence of matter, 
are collateral absurdities : and motion being the 
sole agent or secondary cause of all natural phe- 
nomena, we must necessarily conclude that there 
is nothing more than an unbroken series of re- 
production exhibited in the natural universe ; 
and hence, to speak with philosophic propriety, 
the term Creation is inadmissible and incompre- 
hensible. 

CRUELTY. 

We have a strong proof of the delicate sensi- 
bility possessed by the skin of horses, and other 
hairy animals, in their evincing such high sus- 
ceptibility of cutaneous irritation and torment 
from flies, and other species of the insectile tribes. 
Yet, in the face of this evidence, base and unre- 
flecting mankind use the lash upon these deli- 
cately sensitive creatures, as if they were cover- 
ed with hides analogous to the rind of a tree ; 
and painfully knowing this fact, I wish there 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 39 

there a law, and a rigourous one too. that would 
teach the cruel wretches to reflect upon their 
actions towards dumb animals, by enforcing an 
equitable transfer of the weight of the scourge 
upon their own bare cuticle. Such a law would 
be strictly just and moral, and also productive 
of incalculable good: for there is no crime equal 
to that of cruelty. 

DEATH. 

Death is neither friend nor foe where it 
strikes : for when the final quencher of life lights, 
it is like a neutral visitor to its pre}'. It may be 
a foe in its mode of attack : but in its result, it is 
the same to all, when they fully quit the feeling 
mode. 

But. by stopping the career of an individual, 
death may thus prove an enemy to some of those 
who still hang on the thread of life, by depriving 
such of that which is of fax greater value to 
them than life itself. 

DEITY (Snppositive). 

If there be a God, and his essential nature be 
that of love of truth, justice and virtue, or in 
other words, rational rectitude of human char- 
acter, then between him and myself there can be 
no enmity ; nor can a confirmed and punctili- 
ously moral atheist have any thing to fear from 
him, either now, or hereafter, in the shape of re- 
tribution or punishment. For omniscience it- 
self, or whomsoever may watch and best know 



40 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

the particular modes and moral actions of a good 
atheist,* especially those that relate to his deal- 
ings and conduct towards all other sensitive be- 
ings (that move within his influence), cannot 
discover in, nor acquire from him any principles 
of action which will ever justly merit condemna- 
tion or censure ; nor will any individual lessen 
the number, or weaken any of his good qualities 
by imitating and practising his personal and 
moral habits ; and I deem it a bounden duty for 
me, here to challenge all classes of religious op- 
ponents, and every one who knows the real 
character of a good atheist, to deny the accuracy 
of this atheistical development and vindication ; 
for a good atheist has a defensible and justifiable 
reason for every designed action he performs, if 
such action can in the least degree affect the in- 
terests of others : — Yet, by a series of painful ex- 
perience, many atheists are forced to acknow- 
ledge, that their love of truth, justice, and rational 
liberty, have impelled them to act in direct op- 
position to their own interests ; however, they 
have in conscious view, the consolatory reflec- 
tion, that if the love and practice of justice, truth 
and due benevolence, do not constitute wisdom, 



* For there are bad atheists as well as bad Christians ; and 
let it be remembered, that it is exclusively moral rectitude, 
and not firm adherence to religious rites that constitutes the 
goodness of character in a good Christian, any more than at- 
" tachment to atheism makes a good atheist, but it is moral 
action that effects the good in each case ; and hence, the 
study and practice of morality is all we need, in order to be- 
come exalted and righteous : i for who can philosophically or 
justly say that the human species has any important duty to 
perform beyond those which genuine morality enjoins 1 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 41 

virtue, and exalted goodness, or conduct and 
character that is most pleasing to the theist's 
Supreme Being, then through the medium of 
sound philosophy they are assured, that nature, 
morality, and all science, proclaim the impossi- 
bility of any relation or moral obligation between 
such a God and the human race. 

A good atheist always desires to be held ac- 
countable for his own designs and actions ; and 
hence, if he should at any time, or by any means , 
(of his own) perpetrate an injury, he hopes jus- 
tice will pursue him, and accomplish a full ex- 
piation for all such acts ; and further, he will 
neither wish nor endeavour to excuse or screen 
himself from condemnation and censure (if he 
should merit either) by abusing the devil, and 
libeling human nature : which mean, groveling, 
slavish, and unrighteous practice, is a glaring 
characteristic fruit of Christianity. 

If there be any thing exalted cr amiable in the 
character of a religious man, he owes it not to 
religion, but to morality ; for to spea V plain and 
naked truth, there is no inherent goodness in 
religion itself; nor can it ever convert a bad in- 
dividual into a good one ; its terrific influence 
may act like that of the gallows, which some- 
times frightens an unthinking villain into due 
reflection upon morals, and thus convinces him 
of the superior advantages of moral rectitude ; 
and from this new impulse, lie may be induced 
to join a religious sect, and consequently give 
religion the entire credit of the beneficial change 
evinced in his character ; but sound philosophy 
and moral science dec hire such conclusions to 
4* 



42 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

be erroneous, for the merit is traceable and due 
to the convincing force of pure morality. 

Had those bad individuals, who may have 
been frightened by the terrours of religion, re- 
ceived in early life a good moral education, 
there is every probable reason to believe that 
they would not subsequently have become bad 
characters. 

DEITY (A Secondary). 

If there be a God, and if he be a just and 
good being, he must necessarily be only a secon- 
dary existence ;* because, if a perfectly just and 
good being tvere the author and creator of all 
things, that, which we term evil, could not have 
made an essential part of the universe. 

DEISM. 

It appears to me that deism is a necessary 
medium between fanatical superstition and sub- 
lime truth. The natural piety (or, perhaps, to 
express the matter in more correct terms, the 
natural gratitude) which eminently exists in the 
human heart, renders it almost impossible for 
one who has actually been in the possession of a 
full belief of the truth and divinity of the Chris- 
tian religion to reject it, and at once advance to an 
admission of the truth of materialism. For every 



* Reader, whatever may be your creed, profession, or 
opinion, deign to reflect; and refute, if you can, that thereby 
you may confer an important benefit on the thinking part of 
society. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 43 

human being capable of contemplating, must feel 
a kind of sacred glow of gratitude towards the 
author of the good he feels and beholds around 
him ; and this author, he has been taught to be- 
lieve ', is an animated being, possessing .passions, 
not very unlike his own, but still, an infinite, in- 
telligent, and yet immaterial existence, who 
produced every thing of which man has any 
knowledge; consequently, after the mind has 
been encumbered with such contradictory no- 
tions and dogmas, it requires a considerable 
chain of genuine reflection and patient reason- 
ing to convince the understanding that it is im- 
possible for such a being to exist, in accordance 
with the constitution of the universe. But if he 
become a deist from the exercise of thought and 
reflection, he is sure, in due time, from the same 
causes, to arrive at the truth, and avow himself 
(if an honest man) a materialist. 

If there were a God, and a knowledge of his 
existence was essential and really important to 
the human race, there certainly would exist 
some puissant means within the reach of man to 
demonstrate such an important existence. 

But the most cogent reason, being at present 
suspended between the theistical hypothesis and 
the negation of the atheist, it does appear to me 
to be more natural, modest, and certainly more 
wise to lean to the negative side, until something 
like demonstration can be adduced. 

If one party affirms the existence of a being, 
in opposition to the negation of others, the af- 
firming party certainly ought to be able to tell 
how and where such an existence is to be found, 



44 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

or cease to censure and anathematize those who 
are, by the force of reason ; obliged to come to a 
different conclusion. 

DELICACY {Fastidious). 

We often meet with self-important shallow- 
brains, who make a great ado about trifles ; such, 
for instance, as the pronunciation of particular 
words, and the delicacy or indelicacy of the 
sound of them ; while, at the same time, they 
either scorn or neglect all delicacy of action^ 
which is of far greater importance. 

DESIGN. 

I Where is now, or ever was, the pavilion of 
an all-potent God, or super-material power and 
infinite loill ? The attributes of intelligence and 
design, are inseparably connected with matter, 
or the elements which form every active exist- 
ence* that we have any correct knowledge of; 
therefore, if we (through the medium of our own 
intelligence) consider all the productions of mat- 
ter the results of design, this designing power 
must then be considered to reside with, or have 
its source in, some animal organism; for we 
have no just and analogical ground whereby to 
rationally conceive intelligence beyond, or out 
of, the sensitive portion of the universe. 



* For the capacities of space and time are negative, at least 
that of space is. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 45 

DESIRE. 

Without desires, beyond eating, drinking, 
and dress, we deserve not the name of rational 
beings. If we have great desires beyond these, 
we shall be happy in the pursuit of them, that 
is, while we feel confidential hope of realizing 
them ; but when hope leaves us, we become un- 
happy ; and when we cease to have desires, we 
are then incapable of felicity ; and the sooner 
we quit the stage of life the better, both for our- 
selves and those around us. 

DESTINY. 

I If there be a God, or an infinite, eternal, and 
immutable Creator of all things, how can there 
exist any moral relation between him and the 
human species? ^or how can any of his created 
finite beings morally owe him any thing ? hav- 
ing received and possessed only what their 
Creator destined and obliged them to sustain ; 
and hence, whether they are (according to hu- 
man nature and notion) good or bad, happy or 
miserable, they exist exactly agreeable to his 
will. Or, in other words, they must always ex- 
ist precisely as they do ; because, if we admit 
the existence of an infinitely intelligent and im- 
mutable Creator and governor of the universe, 
such an existence essentially swallows up, or 
includes (within its power) all things ; and every 
separate existence must inevitably be both phy- 
sically and morally a patient, or slave of an infi- 
nite and inflexible will. 



46 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

DIGESTION. 

It appears to me, that those species of animals 
possessing only one stomach or receptacle for 
receiving and digesting their food, ought to take 
it by meals, or in sufficient and satisfying quan- 
tities at needed times; and thus leaving con- 
siderable intervals, to allow the aliments to un- 
dergo the necessary chemical operation, or chy- 
lifaction. 

DRESS. 

Many of the mentally weak of both sexes load 
themselves with expensive and showy clothes 
and gewgaws, for the purpose of exciting and 
gaining influence over others ; but such extrin- 
sic means are of little avail, save on foolish per- 
sons much like the wearers. 

DRINKING. 

They generally enjoy a greater degree of cor- 
poreal elasticity, health, and mental equanimity, 
who have never accustomed themselves to drink 
a more exciting or volatile fluid than that of pure 
water, but a less degree of intellectual sensibility, 
or, in other words, feel less mental excitement 
(from the same causes) than those who have 
been in the habit of passing the bounds of per- 
sonal prudence and discretion, in the use of 
drink, during their years of adolescence. But 
in the aggregate of human sensations during 
individual life, those enjoy the most refined 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 47 

happiness, or rather experience the least unhap- 
piness. who never accustomed themselves to take 
any soporiferous or intoxicating liquors. 

Among the various decoctions and infusions 
made use of as beverages at meals, and in some 
countries after them, the best that I have a 
knowledge of, are cocoa and chocolate. These 
are nutritious, and, in some degree, strengthen 
the stomach, and also gratefully excite the ani- 
mal spirits. 

The next in good qualities is coffee, which, in 
a small degree, cheers and vivifies the system, 
whilst its peptic or digestive powers are conside- 
rable. Those who are in the habit of using it, 
know its immediate effects upon their own 
stomachs : it certainly is preferable to tea for a 
supper beverage. 

The infusion of tea contains a corrosive acid 
or quality, and relaxes the stomach, if freely 
used ; but its powers of exciting and vivifying 
the human frame are very great ; it is also a 
good anthipnotic, and at the same time it ener- 
vates; it is favourable to intellectual improve- 
ment, because it tends to refine, and render the 
senses more acute and delicate ; hence it is not a 
suitable beverage for those whose fate it is to 
live poorly, and whose daily employment is 
coarse and rigorous : for to refine their senses, 
only tends to render them more alive and sensi- 
ble of their hard state of existence, which they 
have no means of bettering. 



48 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

DURATION. 

The aggregate known phenomena of the uni- 
verse, proclaims the impossibility of the eternal 
duration of any organized existence or material 
identity, except the identical primary atoms of 
elements; if there be such identic elementary 
corpuscular existences. 

DUTY. 

A synoptical view of the true roots of ethics, 
first, sympathy — second, judgment- — third, hon- 
esty. To carefully observe and practise the 
qualities expressed by the above three important 
nouns, constitute the entire duty of man. Dis- 
criminative judgment is only needed to govern 
sympathy, as sympathy without wise judgment 
often becomes a greater evil than a good : hones- 
ty needs no corrector. I must here observe, that 
genuine morality requires sympathy to be equal- 
ly extended to the whole of sensitive existence, 
and not confined to the human species, as the 
selfish principles of some systems of religion 
seem to inculcate. 

EDUCATION {Veridical). 

A large majority of human-kind are vulgar, 
stupid, slavish, unfeeling, sordid, and vicious. 
I And why are they so? Because the instruction 
received makes them so. Their instructors are 
as ignorant of their own nature and true morali- 
ty as themselves. At present there is no more 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 49 

sound morality in the habits and actions of the 
rich and exalted, than there is in those of the 
poor and degraded. If a few persons in each 
generation attain a knowledge of the principles 
of genuine morals, it springs not from their os- 
tensible teachers, or from books, or the customs 
of any one class of society ; but the discovery is 
made through the medium of their own oscillat- 
ed reflection. The present pretended morals of 
the schools, together with the fashions, customs, 
and habits of general society, are productive of 
any thing rather than good or elevated senti- 
ments ; and the votaries of these fashions and 
prejudices evince even less sagacity, and reflec- 
tion than do the brutes of several species. Ci The 
classes are filled with clever children, and the 
world with foolish men :" and to the character 
of the children might be added innocence, and 
to that of the men groveling and sordid immo- 
rality. 

He who needs the personal assistance of oth- 
ers, in order to become capable of communicat- 
ing any thing of importance, or who requires to 
be taught that which it is intended he should 
become a professor of, will never make a perfect 
one. As he who is void of originality, inven- 
tion, contrivance, and a capacity to discover, is 
only a blockhead, or has a head analogous to a 
block of wood or stone, which will retain any 
shape and appearance that may be given to it, 
but has no inventive or conceptive faculty, or 
modifying taste of its own ; and, therefore, one 
is susceptible of a wrong form or bad shape, and 
the other an erroneous bias of mind; in short, 



50 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

being void of genius, he cannot be fit for a 
teacher. 

ENJOYMENT [Physical and Intellectual). 

The nature of the human species presents 
two specific mediums, sources, capacities, or 
powers, for realizing enjoyment; which are, 
physical, or sensual, and intellectual faculties : 
and the excessive cultivation and exercise of 
either increases its own capacity; while, at the 
same time, in an equal ratio, it weakens or de- 
stroys the capacity of the other ; and as the se- 
quent fruits of these distinct faculties and enjoy- 
ments are widely dissimilar, it would be wisdom 
to use every possible incitation to increase the 
one and diminish the other ; for those of the in- 
tellectual are tranquillity and pleasurable reflec- 
tion, while those of the sensual are languor, dis- 
gust, and often horrific inquietude. 

ENJOYMENT {Intellectual). 

The reason that most persons are so very fond 
of bustle, novelty, and the eternal revolution of 
fashion, and, (on the other hand,) so apt to sicken 
at the thought of retirement, is, because they do 
not feel many of the pleasing and elevated sen- 
timents which result from a cultivated memory ; 
for the ideal ramifications of a deeply reflected 
reminiscence converts the moments of solitude 
into peaceful periods, and successive oscillations 
of the most pure and grateful feeling, and the sub- 
limest pleasures. Hence it is that truly reflective 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 51 

persons never feel existence in solitude an in- 
tolerable burden, as do the votaries of fashion, 
whenever their persons' happen for a short*time 
to be placed in a state of ciausure or solitude. 

ETERNAL. 

I allow that all physiological thinkers admit 
some kind of potential existence to be eternal, or 
inconceivably durable ; many of whom, also, 
endeavour to discover and attempt to expound 
what this uncaused or eternal existence really 
is; but, unfortunately for the interests of truth, 
by wrong trains of reasoning ; for this knowledge 
is like all other knowledge, attainable only 
through the primary medium of sensation and 
mental reflection upon nature's physical exist- 
ences, and, therefore, the only rational grounds 
or data, on which our reflective capability can 
be employed to the greatest advantage in pursu- 
ing this object, if it be admitted that we should 
reason from what we do absolutely know, is to 
start and reason from a single point of space, to 
any definite portion of its boundless existence, 
and from a single atom of matter, to an aggre- 
gate of atoms ; and the drastic actions of prima- 
ry atoms upon concrete masses, (through the 
essential modes of motion,) and then from these 
endeavour to trace the more ponderous and im- 
mense phenomena of the universe to their prox- 
imate causes, and, after this legitimate and phy- 
siological pursuit, draw the important conclusion, 
which will be, that the only absolute knowledge, 
on this important head, the highest known in- 



52 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

tellectual power can arrive at, as uncaused or 
self-existences, even after the most lengthened 
tracings and extended contemplation, are those 
of TIME, SPACE, and MATTER, which 
trinity of elements constitutes the only ETER- 
NAL. With the existence of the above three 
elements, motion* is essential ; yet it appears to 
be a conjoint accident of matter and space, rath- 
er than a self or uncaused existence. 

Thus TIME, or the succession of moments, 
appears to me, to make an essential element of 
the Eternal ; but, beyond these eternal essences, 
TIME. SPACE, and MATTER, i who can dis- 
cover, perceive, or rationally conceive, a fourth ? 

EVIL (Natural). 

There is a certain portion of physical poison, 
or evil, inherent in or effected by matter, perva- 
ding the universe; and this physical or ma- 
terial poison begets moral poison or evil : and it 
is a question with me, which I think is worthy of 
the minutest examination by the highest degree 
of philosophic intelligence, whether human wis- 
dom, virtue, or jurisprudence, can possibly de- 
stroy or even neutralize the moral evils which 
are engendered by the physical poison that sub- 
tilly acts upon sensitive existence, even through- 
out all mundane perceptive life, but more es- 
pecially upon the human species. 



* I consider motion to be the great secondary cause or 
agent of all phenomena, 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 53 

EXCELLENCE {Elements of). 

Carefulness, fearfulness, thoughtfulness, 

ond a truly humane delicacy, are connatural quali- 
ties generally found nearly equal in activity with 
all who possess, and eminently evince, any one 
of these attributes ; and when these are actu- 
ally concentrated, they form the highest degree 
of rationality and excellence of human character. 

FAITH. 

I What is faith ? i Is it a proof of truth ? No ; 
because pure faith means only a blind belief in 
assertions, or shows a person to possess an ig- 
norant confidence in assumed existences and 
circumstances; — for active faith is but the 
pertinacious adhesion to certain propositions, 
opinions, and positions, without the test, or sup- 
port of rational conviction. 

If a firm faith in any affirmation were a 
proof of its truth, then there could not possibly be 
opposite and contradictory faiths ; but we know 
they do exist in regard to all important hypotheses. 

FALLIBILITY. 

Changeability of belief, or will, when we 
are incited to examine, is palpable evidence of 
imperfection of judgment, or the fallibility of our 
first mental conclusions, and the want of intui- 
tive perception when definitive positions are ex- 
hibited to our view and reasoning faculties : at 
the same time, it proves that our mental powers 



54 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

and all acquirements are progressive, and that 
to exercise reflection is the only sure way to ar- 
rive at, or even approximate sublime truth. And 
these facts also clearly prove the criminality of 
persecuting specific beliefs and opinions. 

FASHION. 

The existence of fashion is a distinguishing 
characteristic of moral and intellectual weakness, 
or the imperfection of public judgment ; for pe- 
riodical fashions will cease whenever the human 
race shall become wise enough to clearly per- 
ceive their true interests. 

The present diffused range of fashion involves, 
within its irrational sphere, innumerable evils ; 
for, where it yields one imbecile and fleeting 
pleasure, it entails for it a thousand unpleasant 
sensations and miserable anxieties, and is de- 
structive of intellectual culture, moral peace, 
comfort, and wealth. 

If the successive periods of fashion were gov- 
erned by the advancing steps of useful science 
and improvements, the consequerices of fashion 
would then be exactly the reverse of what they 
are at present ; because, under such a philoso- 
phic principle of guidance, new fashions would 
form fresh criterions of practical good sense, and 
progressive public utility ; and, when true wis- 
dom becomes a principal characteristic of human 
society, fashion will give place to lasting cus- 
toms* of general utility. 

* Perhaps it may be well just to remind some readers, 
that the words fashion and custom are not perfectly synony- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 5*} 

FRIENDSHIP. 

True friendship, in the fullest sense of the 
term, embraces every moral excellence: — it is 
compatible only with virtue, because vicious 
and immoral persons are incapable of either 
feeling or practising it. 

True friendship ought to be reciprocally felt, 
and superadded, even to the most powerful and 
virtuous sexual love, ere the iron bond of mar- 
riage he solemnized. 

The affection of friendship is essentially dif- 
ferent from that of sexual love, because sexual 
love has its source in a physical want; or. in 
other words, sexual love itself is neither more 
nor less than a corporeal development: while the 
affection termed friendship is generated by in- 
tellectual culture, and the moral qualities of our 
nature : hence true friendship ma} 1 " exist between 
the sexes without any portion of sexual love ; 
and reciprocal sexual love may exist without 
true friendship. 

The natural source of friendship is so unlim- 
ited, and the feeling itself so indefinite in ca- 
pacity, that it is capable of sustainmc' a vast plu- 
rality of objects within the inviolable circle of its 
reciprocation : while the source of sexual love is 



mous term*. When any shape, mode, or manner has been 
introduced to the public, and also obtained general adoption, 
it is then very properly termed a. J ien it has 

existed without alteration for a great length of time, and 
still continues without any prospect of material change, it 
should cense to be considered a - lot, by us loog con- 

tinuance in use, it merits the appellation of oil: :om. 



56 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

physical, and consequently limited in its capa- 
bility of giving and receiving pleasure, and so 
exclusive in regard to individual feeling, that it 
can only be genuine and fully experienced to- 
wards one object at one and the same time. 
This passion being the consequence of a physi- 
cal want, it necessarily is subject to a greater 
degree of ardour, violence, and rapture; and, 
consequently, it is less stable, and more fragile, 
than the intellectual cement of friendship; 
hence the necessity of conjoining true friendship 
with sexual love, in order to secure continence, 
sexual fidelity and happiness, under the obliga- 
tion of marriage. 

FROST {Effects of). 

That there is an essential analogy between 
the nature of sensitive and vegetative existence, 
is evincible in a variety of phenomena, each of 
which tend more or less to show and demon- 
strate how material, chemical, and even me- 
chanical is the very principle of vitality. 

One instance in particular now occurs to 
me, which I deem worthy of especial remark, 
judging the fact to be only very limitedly under- 
stood, or perhaps, its possibility admitted ; al- 
though it is generally known, that there is a va- 
riety of vegetative existences which cannot be 
exposed to the influence of severe frost without 
being deprived of their vegetative principle, or 
growing energy ; while there are others, which 
can exist in a frozen state without sustaining the 
least injury ; — and likewise in regard to animal 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 57 

nature, (however incredible it may appear to 
some individuals, yet it is a truth.) there are 
several species of serpents that can remain for 
weeks, in a stiffly frozen state without losing 
the vital principle, or sustaining any injury ; 
that is, if the freezing be effected during hyber- 
nation ; — but when a serpent may chance to get 
frozen in the spring of the year, after it has been 
re-animated by the sun's influence, its life will 
in this case be destroyed. 

This last circumstance, or animal liability, 
confirms the above theory of the sensitive and 
vegetative analogy, by its perfect similitude to 
the results produced on those hardy vegetative 
existences which are (sometimes) exposed to se- 
vere frost in the spring of the year, after their 
saps and fluids have been put into new motion 
and lively circulation. 

It appears to me, that while any mass of mat- 
ter remains frozen, its component atoms are then, 
and then only, relatively inert, or entirely divest- 
ed of progressive change, motion, and all chemi- 
cal action : hence, the frozen state may be truly 
termed the partial and temporary death of mat- 
ter. 

FRUITION. 

I think the full gratification of one or more 
of the branches of the aggregate sense may be 
correctly termed pleasure, while happiness may 
be considered to embrace the easy and grateful 
state of the compound or entire system of sensa- 
tion, conjoined with a perfect quietism. 



58 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

GANGRENE (Moral). 

There aTe a variety of mental and moral 
gangrenes, which have their source in the vari- 
ous unphilosophic and stultifying systems of 
education. But the universal gangrene that has 
been the great and unceasing plague of the 
world, was generated and disseminated by the 
numerous systems of religion ; many of which 
systems, or their legitimate offspring, still con- 
tinue to engender all kinds of unnatural impul- 
ses and baneful rites, and thus diffusively per- 
petuate a desolating moral, political, and domes- 
tic plague. 

GROSSNESS, OR HEAT. 

In consequence of a want of more delicacy in 
the visual and touching senses of the human 
species, we are debarred the important pleasure 
of demonstrating, or palpably perceiving the 
true cause of heat, and much other phenomena 
of a deeply interesting nature. Yet grossly con- 
stituted as man is, those who are given to deep 
reflection can intellectually perceive that- chemi- 
cal motion and atomic friction are great causes 
of natural heat. In order to generate local and 
artificial heat, we strike a piece of flint and steel 
together, and both being hard bodies, the sudden 
clash of their surfaces elicits an effLuvium, or a 
portion of primary atoms of opposite elements, 
whose collision and urflon, or almost inconceiv- 
able rapidity of mutual action, produce a spark, 
which coming in contact with some eager in- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY, 59 

flammable matter, may then be easily communi- 
cated to other ignitible and combustible sub- 
stances, and thus a palpable local motion and 
heat is continued for any definite length of time. 

HAPPINESS {Senile). 

Individuals, who are both physically and 
mentally active, and whose activity may be ac- 
companied by agreeable success during that part 
of life when all the animal fluids circulate vigo- 
rously, and the whole system performs its func- 
tions well, can enjoy life, even under such ar- 
duous difficulties and oppressive operations as 
will force very delicate, sensuous, and amiable 
persons, in advanced age, to commit suicide ; 
hence, we may perceive that human nature, 
when under the influential circumstances of sen- 
sitive delicacy and high intellectual culture, re- 
quires an advancing series of pleasing excita- 
tions, agreeable employment of time, and profi- 
table results of professional exertions, in order 
to ensure happiness during the decay of physi- 
cal vigour or sanguinity, and the decline of in- 
tellectual energy. 

For those who have passed the enthusiastic 
age, or the hopeful flower of life, and who have 
also seen much of the world, especially the 
highly intelligent and morally delicate, require, 
and, indeed, must experience a constant acces- 
sion of lively ideas or impelling desires, with 
the necessary means of gratifying these succes- 
sive desires, in order to feel a continuance of life 
rationally desirable; because, with such indi- 



60 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

viduals, the ardour and influence of prospective 
enjoyments have become cold and weak, and 
quite inadequate to support the mind under 
oppressive circumstances, and flagging spirits, 
which time and active life rarely fail to bring 
on. 

A principal means of extending and prolong- 
ing a good flow of spirits, and a capacity for en- 
joying life, is to secure (as long as possible) a 
vigorous tone of body and firmness of nerve : — 
Now to ensure the realization of these important 
possessions and acquirements, we must mode- 
rate every youthful desire and its gratification ; 
and to this end we should avoid the use of stim- 
ulating fluids and substances in early life, when 
all the animal spirits flow through the vessels 
of every organ with sufficient ardour to produce 
an effusion of vivacity, even when the stomach 
is supplied merely with pure water and the most 
simple aliments ; thus we may perceive the great 
advantage of beginning the world (as it is term- 
ed) under such pecuniary means as will barely 
ensure the necessaries of comfortable existence, 
because such circumstances are eminently cal- 
culated to induce a habit of general observation, 
serious attention to important affairs, and close 
application to professional employments. 

The conjoint observance of these points in 
youth, will thenceforth form an agreeable habi- 
tude through the vigorous periods of life, which, 
being calculated to produce a ratio of advancing 
means of enjoyment with the increase of age, 
will thus render happiness highly probable quite 
to the end of individual existence. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. Gl 

It is the weighty and affecting circumstances 
of the present moment, and such as bear on the 
future periods of our life, that must ever form 
the paramount object with us ; because, reflec- 
tion, when directed to past enjoyment, adds no- 
thing to present happiness or the means of indi- 
vidual content ; but, on the contrary, in many 
instances, a retrospective view of joyous mo- 
ments forms a heavy drawback upon the amount 
of means of both present and prospective con- 
tent ; hence we may see how vitally important 
it is, that the progressive course of rational ex- 
istence should be accompanied with the neces- 
sary means of adding to the number and amount 
of our enjoyments, in order that we may always 
feel the present period the most happy of all our 
life ; or, in other words, more joyous than any 
part of the past appears to have been. 

HEN-ROOST. 

A hen-roost is not so perfect a representation 
of monarchy as a great philosopher has asserted. 
Indeed, I scarcely can perceive any analogy be- 
tween a cock and his roost of hens, and a king 
and his nation of slaves. The attachment be- 
tween the cock and hens is entirely sexual af- 
fection. If nations were governed by queens in 
place of kings, then, as regards the men, there 
would be a shade of analogy between a queen- 
dom and a cockdom. 

6 



62 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY 

HEREAFTER. 

The happy time will come when butchery, 
or the fleshefs trade, shall cease, and be looked 
upon and viewed by future generations, through 
the medium of history, with horrour and detesta- 
tion ; and then, under those new, refined, and 
joyous circumstances, all lovely and useful ani- 
mals will be cultivated and kindly treated by 
human-kind; while, on the other hand, the 
venomous serpent and loathsome reptile will be 
exterminated, unless the nature of matter, and 
the compatibility of the universe, should demand 
their existence, and therefore reproduce their 
genus ; if this should prove to be the nature of 
elements, the human race will then be wise 
enough to keep the living number of these hate- 
ful species comparatively small, by well securing 
their dead bodies in air-tight coffins, and bury- 
ing them very far beneath the surface of the 
earth, in order to prevent a vital re-union of 
their peculiar and essential atoms. 

HISTORY. 

As far as history goes, it shows that there 
never was a period when human life, under 
those circumstances termed civilized society, 
was worth sustaining, at least, as regards the 
great mass of the species ; therefore, to look to 
history as a safe and sure means of attaining an 
improved state of human society, or to expect 
that the study and cultivation of it, will ever 
enable us to approximate political optimity, and 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 63 

moral perfection, is worse than useless ; because 
to whatever period we direct our attention, the 
state of society, on the whole, was then inferior 
to that of our own time ; consequently cannot 
be of any value to us as a guide, but in truth is 
much more likely to misguide than conduct to 
a course that will infallibly lead us to the enjoy- 
ment of physical truth, moral perfection, and 
the highest possible degree of human felicity. 

When civilized nations are morbid and in 
mental and moral decline, the study of history 
is their best literary employment. But when 
the intellectual world is in a healthy and vigor- 
ous state, the study of history is little better than 
waste of time ; except that part of it called natu- 
ral history, part of which, however, ought to be 
termed philosophy (I mean that which is de- 
scriptive of animals, &c). A correct history of 
the natural changes which must have taken 
place in the mundane surface, would at all times 
form a most interesting and important part of re- 
fined education, and serve for useful reflection in 
mature age. It is mush wiser to endeavour to 
learn what nature has done, and is continually 
doing, than unpleasantly spend our time in ac 
quiring an uncertain and ambiguous knowledge 
of what base and superstitious men have done 
during, comparatively, a moment of time,* for 
the oldest history is but an account of what may 
be termed yesterday's events, when viewed in 
relation and conjunction with the age of the 

* i" Shall I read some book of history'?" said his son to 
Sir Robert Walpole, at his last illness. " History— no : 1 
have done with all works of fiction, and such is history." 



64 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

world, and, indeed, even of human existence. 
And it is far more grateful, grand, and useful, to 
study the blindly working elements of time and 
matter, than the sublimest of the fine arts ; be- 
cause, through a correct knowledge of those ele- 
mentary powers we arrive at the most important 
truths, both physical and moral, and conse- 
quently at the means of true and solid happiness. 
And farther, because in the pure operations of 
nature, we meet with no human caprice or erro- 
neous principles for our annoyance, with which 
history abounds. 

HURRY. 

A truly rational and delicate individual sus- 
tains innumerable different pains and pleasures 
that cannot be experienced by the indelicate and 
irrational. 

A wise and delicately methodical person feels 
mental and moral pain when he has to hurry* 
in the practice of his profession or mechanical 
pursuits ; because he perceives it a want of wis- 
dom, and a waste of rational life, not to strive to 
render the time spent in every kind of employ- 
ment productive of both present and future com- 
fort and happiness. 

A really wise man feels mental, not physical, 
pain when, from social custom, he is obliged to 
swallow his meals in such haste that he can 



* According to my judgment, the most proper meaning 
that can be attached to the verb hurry, is the making or do- 
ing any thing quicker than we can do it justly, properly, or 
with comfort to ourselves. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 65 

scarcely distinguish, through the medium of the 
palate, any difference between aliments that are 
wholesome and delicious, and those that are 
coarse and disagreeable. 

IMBECILITY (Theistical). 

The gratifying existences of the universe, 
lead some persons to conclude that there must 
have been a good God to have created them. 
On the other hand, I would ask, £ why not an 
equally powerful evil God to have created the 
bad, or those natural existences which evidently 
and necessarily are productive of sentient evil, 
or pain and misery? 

If, in the course of our extended travels, we 
should arrive at a distant, and, to us, previously 
altogether unknown island, and nation of people, 
who speak or practise the use of our own lan- 
guage, and whose arts, sciences, laws, morals, cus- 
toms, and, in short, where all things have reached 
a state of human optimity, we might, upon similar 
grounds of reasoning, be led to conclude and 
exclaim, what divinely-powerful and excellent 
kings this nation must have had to effect such a 
delightful state of things, while reflection upon 
political experience, might have taught us, that 
the existence of such a concatenation of benign 
circumstances would render it almost impossible 
that there should have been any king at all; be- 
cause such perfections are not the results of 
kingly governments, but the legitimate fruits 
of philosophic republican principles. A truly 
penetrating mind can clearly perceive, that all 
6* 



66 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

nature is purely republican or democratic, and 
that every corpuscle is essentially a free citizen 
of the universe, which always has its due and 
individual influence among other atoms, or with 
matter in general. 

In order to .have human laws, arts, sciences, 
customs, and political institutions, in a state of 
optimity, such establishments must exist in strict 
accordance with the immutable principles of 
nature ; hence they cannot be founded upon 
any monarchical basis. 

IMBECILITY {Christian). 

Those of the literati who affirm that Chris- 
tianity is not a human device and production, 
but a plan and work of the Deity, pay him a 
very poor compliment ; and, at the same time, 
through their own weakness, cast a blur upon 
the human understanding, by employing pom- 
pous literary means, and every species of politi- 
cal influence, with a view of upholding this 
system of religion, against the opposition and un- 
aided efforts of philosophic reflection. If it be a 
result of God's omniscience, almighty power, and 
immutable will, it certainly cannot either need, 
or in fact, receive, any addition or upholding aid 
from human efforts. We know that the exist- 
ence of the sun, moon, and stars, are not results 
of human invention or animal productive pow- 
er ; hence, they who maintain that Christianity 
owes its existence to the same power that sus- 
tains the sun, should, in order to be consistent, 
**est with calm and grateful satisfaction, in con- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 67 

templating and admiring Christianity in a simi- 
lar manner to what we view, contemplate, and 
admire the sun, and its recreative effects ; but 
never arrogantly presume to increase, strength- 
en, or support such a stupendous super-human 
production or existence. 

But whether we contemplate and admire the 
sun or not, it still rolls on, and continues to 
shine with its vivifying glory, producing all its 
wonted effects, and proving its independence of 
animal design and assistance ; therefore, if Chris- 
tianity be the will and work of God, give it the 
same, or a similar, chance of demonstrating its 
super-human source; and presume not to ac- 
complish by finite means the preservation of 
that, which Omnipotence cares not to preserve. 

IMAGINATION. 

Imagination is not a primary creature of the 
mind, as is generally considered, but only a, fa- 
culty, resulting from the ideas we already pos- 
sess, to vary the existence or appearance of 
something with which we were previously ac- 
quainted ; and thus imagination is only a varied 
fruit of previous ideas, or knowledge already 
stored in the mind of the imaginer ; therefore. 
what is imagined is not purely an original pro- 
duction of any mind, or in any instance ; never- 
theless, it is by these ideal projections and re- 
flective oscillations, that men increase their 
minds, and become intellectually rich, as it 
were, by mental anatocism. 



68 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

IMPOSTURE. 

If a certain old system of religion be impos- 
ture, say some, it is still a beneficial errour ; but 
true philosophy and wisdom affirm that there 
cannot be a single useful errour ; truth alone be- 
ing the rock of sound morality ; which is the 
only source and sure medium of attaining true 
happiness. Man cannot possibly see his real 
interest while his understanding is darkened by 
errour. 

IMPOTENCE [Theological). 

Had not the God of the JEWS been wofully 
deficient in power, wisdom, or goodness, when 
he created the parents of that race of human 
beings, he never would have furnished them 
with a faculty, which should, in the course of 
time, necessarily enable them to discover, and 
demonstrate his imperfections, and ultimately 
lead them to rebel and despise him* 

IMPRUDENCE. 

In order to render the present moment felici- 
tous, we too often launch into a train that leads 
to future evils ; and thus an hour's excessive 
pleasure is succeeded by many years of misera- 
ble reflection, and, perhaps, acute corporeal pain ; 
but on these occasions of violent excitement, if 
we were to be more assiduous in the exercise 
of the reasoning faculty, doubtless our momexi- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. G9 

tary enjoyments would prove much less fatal to 
our future health and moral quietude ; as reflec- 
tion is the only infallible guide to moral know- 
ledge, and the practice of genuine morality, — - 
the only sure course for reaching durable fe- 
licity. 

INCREASE (Speculation). 

It appears to me that our globe is now, and 
has long been, on the increase, at least, in solid 
matter ; and if so, consequently fixing motion, 
or aggregating energy ; and it may continue to 
congregate, or fix matter and motion until it 
shall contain more power than any of the then 
surrounding orbs, or until it be furnished with 
essentials to become a self-directing agent, or a 
diffuser of matter and motion, analogous to that 
of the sun : which grand and radiating sphere, 
though now a master agent, must be exhausting 
its bulk and influence; and which, doubtless, 
will ultimately cease to controul a family of oth- 
er stupendous worlds ; that is, if the vast effects 
of that orb are produced by a diffusion of atoms 
from its surface; but of the truth of this theory, 
however, I am not yet satisfied. 

INEXPERIMENTAL. 

God and his ascribed attributes may be justly 
termed inexperimental sentiments; because we 
may conceive or fancy such existences, but can 
never arrive at, or experience any positive know- 
ledge of them. 



70 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

INFINITY. 

No length of life, nor extent of experience, 
will ever enable even the highest intellectual 
being to explain or comprehend the term or 
quality of infinity. In fact, infinity and incom- 
prehensibility are synonymous words. 

INTELLECT. * 

If genuine philosophy recognise intellect as 
an efficient existence, it may then be defined the 
essence of sensation, or a relative percipient 
function centering in the five senses. Or, in 
other words, a reflective emanation from these, 
which can exist to perfection only through the 
capability of feeling the full force of all the in- 
termedial affections that are to be experienced 
through the extremes of pain and pleasure. 

The above sentient actions, necessarily in- 
volve the faculty of reminiscence, which, con- 
junctively, constitute the source of all mental 
phenomena. 

The extensive development and cultivation 
of intellectual means, principally depend on 
varied excitations or affective external circum- 
stances. 

Various quantity of primary intellectual capa- 
bility in different individuals depends on the 
proportions, delicacy, and harmony of arrange- 
ment of the different parts of the brain and ner- 
vous system, as do the proportions of unim- 
proved physical capability depend on the varied 
quantity and temnerament of the constituent 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 71 

muscular matter of the animal frame ; for intel- 
lectual as well as corporeal potentiality is insep- 
arable from organized nervous matter. 

INTEREST (Self). 

If man love justice and virtue (as some mor- 
alists assert) only for the power and pleasure 
they yield him, \ t does he equally love injustice 
and vice, when the practice of these qualities is 
also, to him, the procuring cause of power and 
riches ? For under bad governments and laws, 
the unjust and vicious generally thrive better 
than the just and virtuous. 

My progress in anthroposophy leads me to 
conclude and maintain that there is a preponde- 
rance of moral goodness inherent in unsophisti- 
cated human nature ; therefore, I conceive, that 
reflective man must have a stronger motive and 
interest in being just and virtuous, under all 
circumstances ', than he has in being unjust and 
vicious ; and hence he must love virtue more 
than vice, even under those circumstances where 
vice and injustice give him absolute sway over 
others. Successful injustice and prosperous 
vice may often procure transitory pleasures, but 
never can afford happiness, as evanescent grati- 
fications do not constitute happiness ; for, in or- 
der to experience true happiness, we must be 
more or less reflective : consequently, reflection 
upon unjust and vicious actions must form a bar 
to felicity, even to the lasting of a single insu- 
lated pleasure. 



C 



72 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY* 

INTOXICATION {Mental). 

Weak and slavish minds are easily excited 
and infatuated by delusive religion or supersti- 
tious morals ; and hence, sooner or later, con- 
verted into heated and wild fanatics ; and their 
minds are ultimately made up of visions and 
persuasions that they are rightful heirs to •an- 
other (though unknown and purely imaginary) 
world, in which they promise themselves an 
eternity of blissful communion; hence they 
continue tenaciously wedded to theological ty- 
ranny and superstitious absurdities until they 
arrive at such a degree of mental intoxication 
and frenzy, that, in the sequel, they become per- 
fect strangers to what belongs to their real inte- 
rest, as also the duties they owe, and the rela- 
tions they bear to mundane sensitive existence. 
And thus it is, that either ranting enthusiasm or 
lugubrious dejection forms the general charac- 
teristic mood of the superstitious. 

INVENTION. 

Accident is the essential source of all inven- 
tions ; thus, for instance, the manner in which a 
spiral hair falls from the head while combing it, 
might probably have suggested the invention 
of the permeating or penetrating and bracing 
screw. Indeed, very few occurrences take place 
under the eye of a truly observing and ingen- 
ious mind, without creating the necessary idea 
for a new invention or some degree of improve- 
ment, 






SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 73 

JUDGMENT. 

Judgment is founded and determined on feel- 
ing, both physical and moral. If we judge cor- 
rectly on any fact or proposition, our sensations 
or feelings thereon have been correct also. 

JUSTICE. 

According to my conception, justice is nei- 
ther an element nor essence, but a consequent 
or result of a combination of vital interests ; but 
its quality and ratio of perfection can only be 
judged of in conjunction with times and local 
circumstances ; and thus, necessarily, it is not 
always and every where precisely the same. 
Nor can it exist beyond or out of the animal 
sphere of action ; for it would become a nonen- 
tity without the existence of sensation, design, 
and volition. 

KNOWLEDGE. 

True and valuable knowledge consists in the 
clear perception of the qualities, attributes, and 
relations of those existences upon which we em- 
ploy our senses and reflective powers. 

LABOUR. 

Undoubtedly the fruits of labour belong in 
justice to the labourer : for labour was the first 
wealth of civilization, and laws should secure to 
the labourer the safe possession or enjoyment of 

7 



74 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

it. In a civilized state, if a man has gold, it will 
procure him labour from others, and if he has 
land, it will obtain him gold ; consequently he 
cannot be oppressed, and ought not to indulge in 
complaint. 

If he who labours be duly rewarded, all must be 
right. For where all useful labour is sufficiently 
remunerated, men are born with the sufficient 
means of becoming independent. Thus it would 
be better to be born poor than rich ; because, if 
poor, men would begin their life at the right 
end, to be contented and happy all through it. It 
is the price of useful labour alone that a nation 
should be solicitous to keep up. Whenever the 
price of labour is too low, the price of every ne- 
cessary of life must inevitably be too high. 
This statement cannot be controverted by any 
just mode of reasoning. The price of every ne- 
cessary will always be high enough : indeed, the 
price of necessaries can never be too low ; nor, 
on the other hand, can the price of useful labour 
ever be too high : no evil can possibly arise with- 
in any country from it, but every species of bad 
consequence may be expected from its being too 
low. 

LAWS. 

Influential laws are bad when their ten- 
dency is calculated to reduce sensible and man- 
suete persons to involuntary patients of gross 
and omnivorous tyranny. In a happy state of 
society, the grosser part of the species will al- 
ways be the willing patients of those who are 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 75 

naturally sensible, delicate, judicious, and just, 
and also placid in the exercise of their authority. 
By unnatural laws we are bereaved of our in- 
nate rights and pleasures.. By false morals and 
superstition we are denied even the claim to 
what ought to be our most sacred enjoyments, 
while hateful and injurious customs have par- 
tially annihilated the means of even tasting the 
sweets that would naturally flow from the prac- 
tice of our innocent and lambent desires. 

It would be a wise law which should allow a 
parent to put a period to the life of a monstrous 
or loathsome child ; and such an act, when ac- 
complished, would deserve to be deemed by so- 
ciety a benevolent one, not only as regards the 
human species, for the practice ought to be ex- 
tended to all animals where happiness or com- 
fort cannot possibly be within their reach if suf- 
fered to live. 

LEARNING. 

Sagacity, or that almost intuitive perception, 
which is capable, through the medium of instant 
reflection or judgment, of meeting and safely dis- 
posing of various fortuitous emergencies, is far 
superior to that acquired and fixed habitude 
which is foolishly termed classic learning. 

LIGHT. 

I Are light and heat any more than affections 
of certain gaseous matter — which atoms may 
probably be both diaphanous and crystalline? 



76 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY, 

If this be the case, then we must logically con 
elude that the light and heat are nearly equal 
upon all the planets or terraqueous spheres that 
are of equal size or magnitude, let their distance 
from the sun be what it may. 

LIGHTNING. 

I cannot conceive a flash of lightning to be 
any thing more than the effect of a very violent 
conflict or rushing union of opposite but puis- 
sant elementary atoms ; I also conceive that it is 
the clash of these opposite (and something like 
sexual) elements which produce the phenome- 
non called heat. 

LIGHT. HEAT. SOUND. 

Many circumstances seem to show the phe- 
nomena of light to be only affections of matter, 
or, at least, they show them to have a material 
cause. Yet light does not appear to be the ef- 
fect of a rectilineous flow of specific atoms from 
the sun, or any other luminous body, but a quick 
transmission or corpuscular affection from one 
appropriate atom to another, whilst under pecu- 
liar relations and modes of excitement. 

The adding of resinous or oily substances to 
thin webs of cloth, paper, &c., has a delicate and 
pleasing effect, as they render these bodies much 
more susceptible of transmitting light and heat ; 
at the same time, they make these fabrics more 
dense and impervious to other actions, which 
tend to lessen the analogy that we might at a 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 77 

first view, or reflection, conceive between the 
nature of the production and progress of light 
and sound through space ; because the atoms 
which convey the effects called sound seem to 
be much more gross and inactive than those 
that transmit the material affection termed light 
and heat : for transparent substances stop sound 
as effectually as opaque ones, while the thinnest 
opaque body will completely stop the progress 
of light 

LOVE {Sexual). 

It is clear to me that there are two kinds, or 
perhaps to speak more correctly, two grades of 
sexual love ; the nature of which is but little 
thought of, and still less understood, even by 
those who are either happily or miserably in- 
volved in the consequences. These grades I 
shall here call physical and moral sexual love 
(as I cannot perceive any other names that will 
so well express their natural relations) and in my 
view of the matter, there cannot be any genuine 
or lasting love between man and woman (in 
cultivated society), unless these two grades of 
affection are experienced by each party. I be- 
lieve it is the lack of the moral affection on one 
or both sides, which is the chief, if not sole, 
cause of unhappy nuptials. Moral sexual love 
cannot be experienced without physical sexual 
love; nor, indeed, can it have an existence with- 
out it ; but the physical can and does exist and 
reign without the moral being at all excited : for 
instance, a pretty girl excites physical love in ev- 
7* 



78 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY, 

ery young man she looks in the face 5 but general- 
ly nothing more ; and there cannot be a doubt but 
young women are similarly excited when in 
company with handsome and showy men. The 
measure of physical love generally exists in the 
ratio of the healthy vigour and elasticity of the 
animal frame ; but the end of it. if gratified, is 
either disgust or indifference towards the object 
who excited it. And what is still more lament- 
able, it is the nature of this passion to be always 
burning for new objects of gratification, while it 
is the nature of moral sexual love to increase in 
ardour and delicacy under all circumstances of 
intimacy and extended gratification ; hence all 
the difference between the existing happy and 
miserable sexual unions. The developing and 
the ascertaining of these points and passions 
constitute the proper object and the wisdom of 
courtship. There cannot be either merit or de- 
merit attributed to individuals for loving or not 
loving, as we cannot help feeling as we do feel, 
for our feelings are independent of what is term- 
ed our own will; but there is merit in confessing 
the plain and whole truth of what our feelings 
are, and consequently demerit in concealing 
them when solicited by any one deeply interest- 
ed in the knowledge of them. 

I am persuaded, from careful observation, that 
at least two thirds of those who get united in 
the bonds of marriage, never feel any more than 
what I have termed physical love or passion, 
and especially in regard to the female side : for 
I have great reason to believe, that not more 
than one in eight of these ever feel that exqui- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 79 

eitely tender moral attachment which ought to 
be experienced by every man and woman before 
they are bound in that iron obligation which 
they are never after allowed to annul. The 
cause of the rarity of this tender and important 
affection, on the female side, is evident enough 
— women are not free. They dare not give ut- 
terance to their sentiments and feelings towards 
those on whom their sweetest and purest affec- 
tions are placed : how absurd and cruel is this 
custom. Yes, they must wait till an offer is 
made, and if it be made, they must accept it, 
should it please the parents or guardians of the 
party, but if a young lady remonstrate against 
such an union, the reply is, "remember your 
duty, my dear." Look at his fortune— his fami- 
ly — his estates — his equipage — his every thing 
which can tend to excite and allure the poor 
girl; and thus (being mentally weak) she is per- 
suaded to promise herself a great deal of happi- 
ness in the possession of these pompous things ; 
hence, she ultimately consents to marry; but, 
j alas ! she does not love the man to whom she 
has been induced to bind herself. 

LUNAR. 

From mere visual conclusions the moon ap- 
pears to me to be a terraqueous sphere ; but it is 
not so clear and evident that its aqueous fluid is 
so rare and flaccid as the mundane waters, for 
two reasons : first, because it would, or might 
probably be, at full moon discovered to point or 
incline towards the earth in an obtuse cone, and 



80 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

the lunar boundary show a jagged edge or den- 
ticulated circle; and, secondly, because that 
globe does not appear to have much atmos- 
phere; or, at least, it is not at all dense, and 
whatever atmosphere it has, seems always to 
consist of one uniform rarity. 

We should bear in mind that in regard to dis- 
tance, the moon sustains precisely the same re- 
lation to the sun as the mundane sphere ; there- 
fore, with the exception of its bulk, we ought to 
expect similar results to take place upon its sur- 
face, if it were composed of similar materials. 

MACHINERY. 

They who maintain that machinery is, and 
must remain an oppressive evil to the produc- 
tive classes of a populous country, ought to be 
prepared to admit that knowledge and enlight- 
ening sciences are also acquirements productive 
of evil to the working portion of such populous 
nations ; for machinery is evidently one of the 
necessary results and essential accompaniments 
of science ; and for a people to be legally de- 
prived of realizing the desired gratifications, 
benefits, and pleasures which scientific educa- 
tion naturally inspires, constitutes a species of 
mental torture scarcely to be endured. And the 
evil of machinery, if it be one, is not the only 
weighty charge that can be brought against 
education and science ; for, in a religious point 
of view, experience proves, that when profound 
science takes cognizance of theology, it inevita- 
bly leads to scepticism ; hence infidelity to all 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 81 

systems of religion essentially exists through ev- 
ery nation in the exact ratio of philosophy and 
useful science ; and, therefore, if it be desirable, 
as a large number of devotees affirm, that the 
present progressive increase and spread of re- 
ligious infidelity should be subverted, we must 
cease to agitate and cherish its real parent and 
developing cause, which most assuredly is trace- 
able to the diffusion of scientific education, both 
physical and moral. But until scientific educa- 
tion becomes much more general, society in the 
aggregate will not be in a more happy state than 
it was without this mighty mental expansion ; 
and hence under the present frame of society, it 
is not true that an honest man, or a candid lov- 
er of truth, is happy in the ratio of the extent 
of his valuable knowledge and philosophy. 

MAN {Intellectual). 

In the descending scale of intelligent beings, 
man, by nature, is but a few shades above the 
next class : yet, by possessing this grade above 
the aggregate of organized nervous matter, hu- 
man nature has the power or means, in the 
lapse of time, by a perpetual culture of its various 
sensibility, and by using the experience and in- 
tellectual store of innumerable generations, of 
raising its species to an indefinite degree of per- 
fection and animal superiority, which ought ul- 
timately to produce universal melioration. For 
man possesses three important faculties over and 
above other animals, or at least these in a great- 
er degree ; which faculties are — imagination. 



82 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

the power of abstract reflection, and that of 
speech ; of course he can invent by the first, 
improve by the second, and widely commune 
by the last ; thus neutralize many of his physi- 
cal evils, also increase the number of his real 
comforts, far beyond what any of those animals 
can who are below him in intellectual power 
and mental capacity. But, after all, unless man 
cultivates his reflective superiority, his imagina- 
tion will inevitably lead him into errours ; and 
thus only increase his natural and moral evils, 
in place of advancing his true felicity. Such is 
the real condition of the human species. 

Man, at the present, appears to be a sophisti- 
cated being, as he knows not poison from ali- 
ment without the aid of perilous experience or 
elaborate science ; which, unhappily for him, he 
does not acquire until he has ruined his consti- 
tution, or is at the point of death from old age. 

Inferiour animals not only possess rational 
faculties, but many of them are absolutely taught 
to understand and to act in accordance with the 
moral knowledge that best guides man ; but it 
does not appear that any of them possess a ratio 
of capacity to discover moral principles, with 
that enjoyed by the human race. Sensation, or 
a capability of feeling pain and pleasure in them, 
as well as in all human-kind, is the sole medium 
of every moral acquisition. They who closely 
observe the actions of various animals, find nu- 
merous proofs of their acquiring a degree of 
moral knowledge, even without the assistance 
of superiour beings ; for I have often noticed in 
them a long remembrance of having been ag- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 83 

gressors to some of their species, and during 
these reminiscences, a strong fear of revenge 
evidently followed as a consequence, and which 
consciousness certainly merits to be termed a 
moral perception. Any argument, or written 
treatise upon the nature and qualities of the hu- 
man mind, or rather intellect, is necessarily very 
abstruse and difficult to every mind that is in- 
feriour to that of the speaker or writer, as it is the 
mind treating of the mind; and it must be it- 
self that views and reviews itself: as an inferi- 
our intellect cannot analyze and correctly define 
the essences of a super iour one ; hence the dis- 
agreement in the eductions and conclusions of 
moral and refined philosophers, upon the essen- 
tial and fundamental attributes of the human 
understanding. No two persons can, in this 
very subtile and important study, view precisely 
the same object, nor through the same medium: 
yet a truly rational man will not be deceived by 
others as to his own real character and moral 
worth, either by abuse or calumny, praise or 
flattery ; because his reflection fully discovers to 
him what he is, though all other conflicting 
opinions prove vague and unsatisfactory. 

Some persons have great, or rather large 
minds, but they are composed of little or trifling 
ideas and facts ; consequently, such large minds 
are of small value, while there are those who 
have small minds composed of great or impor- 
tant ideas, and these miuds are of great compara- 
tive value. I would here observe, that the words 
mind and intellect ought not to be considered as 
synonymous terms. 



84 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

I think it must be evident to a correct observ- 
er, that different persons are variously organized, 
and that the proportions of the different consti- 
tuent atoms of the more noble parts of their 
bodies are essentially unequal, from the single 
fact, that the same external cause, operating si- 
multaneously, produces a variety of moral effects 
upon any given number of individuals ; yet all 
of whom evidently exist under the most similar 
circumstances. Or it may be seen, that a single 
external cause will produce even opposite results 
upon two or more persons, who are, apparently, 
as much alike in all points and circumstances as 
it is possible to find them. 

MARRIAGE. 

The married state is susceptible of yielding 
the highest possible degree of human enjoyment, 
when accompanied by genuine and reciprocal 
love, and, consequently, under reverse circum- 
stances, is susceptible of becoming the most un- 
happy and insupportable. 

By prejudicial laws and baneful customs, a 
very large portion of the female sex is reduced 
to mental slavery ; and this is a state now advo- 
cated by many of both sexes, who think them- 
selves very wise : while a true knowledge of hu- 
man nature teaches us that women ought to be 
the most free and the best informed of the two 
sexes, because, in spite of all their vassalage, 
they are essentially the leaders and governors 
of men. But women being kept ignorant of hu- 
man nature, their natural influential character 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 85 

necessarily entails degradation on the human 
race ; for we must know that the baneful effects 
of unhappy marriages are not confined to the 
limits of the married alone, as the poison of nup- 
tial misery generates bad passions in their chil- 
dren, and acerbates the temper of all who live 
in the presence of the jarring pair. There is 
nothing in the universe that can afford so much 
exalted pleasure to a man of s^ood understanding 
and tender feeling, as a virtuous and enlighten- 
ed woman ; and hence she ought to be equally 
instructed and equally free to act and choose for 
herself. 

But much misery might be prevented by a ju- 
dicious change in the law of marriage. Who- 
ever declares the present law of marriage to be 
a perfect one, or an optimical rite, ought, at the 
same time, to be able to show that the persons 
concerned are infallible in their judgment in the 
choice of husbands and wives, as it is to them a 
life affair. If marriage were a strictly wise and 
moral tie, it would at least produce a preponde- 
rance of happiness; but this is not the fact, as 
every unprejudiced and minute observer can 
perceive, that out of seven marriages at least 
four of them are productive of vice and misery : 
yet I am perfectly convinced that for the sexes 
to live as much apart as possible is also a very 
great bar to felicity, and that a promiscuous sex- 
ual intercourse would not be at all desirable. 
But the desirable change is, that the uniting 
bond should last no longer than it is found to 
produce more happiness than misery. Under a 
change of this kind a long catalogue of vices 
8 



86 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

and misery would be annihilated, and an equal 
number of virtues and enjoyments produced. 
Doubtless, some new law under such a change 
of system would be essentially necessary for the 
protection of the various children, and which 
certainly would not be difficult to effect under 
such an improved state of domestic affairs. 

The abrogation of the slavish law of marriage 
would throw a vast increase of moral improve- 
ment into society, and sexual felicity within the 
reach of those who might merit it of both sexes ; 
but to realize which, the present law, and conse- 
quent customs, form an absolute barrier. 

MARTYRDOM. 

The degree of excitement, and subsequent 
enthusiasm, of the disciples of materialism, and 
those of Christianity, must naturally be widely 
different ; and reflection teaches us that we can- 
not rationally expect, even in the warmest and 
most enthusiastic converts to materialism, a reso- 
lution to become martyrs to their principles ; be- 
cause, the materialist is fully and rationally con- 
vinced, from mental culture, a mature knowledge 
of some of the attributes or powers of matter, 
and the nature of numerous existences, that his 
sensitive identity will be absolutely annihilated, 
when the dissolution of his animal machine 
takes place; while the Christian is saturated 
with the belief, and has a sanguine hope (though 
a vain and chimerical one,) that an eternal state 
of happiness will be his portion after his natural 
life shall terminate. Let us here, by way of 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 87 

some illustration, just suppose the existence of 
two men, as much alike in every quality, attain- 
ment, and circumstance (except that of faith or 
conscientious conviction) as it is possible for two 
to be ; then, in order to perceive correctly what 
dissimilar results we ought to expect from the 
mere difference of belief in these two individu- 
als, we will premise the existence of two distant 
Islands; one of which we will describe, (and 
agreeably to certain conditions, offer) as a future 
heritage for the man who shall represent the 
materialist; who shall be fully convinced that 
whosoever can possess it, will enjoy the highest 
degree of human felicity during the remainder 
of his mortal life ; but at the same time, he shall 
be made to understand, that in order to gain it, 
he must inevitably suffer for a considerable 
length of time severe privations, and the most 
excruciating tortures; now, ^is it not natural to 
expect, that when he comes to reason upon the 
matter, he will say, "it is to endure a length of 
certain and dreadful torments, to obtain an 
uncertain length, and probably, a very short 
duration of happiness"? Hence he must be re- 
solved to relinquish the pursuit of so unequal a 
reward. But the man who is to represent the 
Christian, being deluded into a full, but fanati- 
cal belief, that whosoever can reach and obtain 
the other Island, shall enjoy, from that moment, 
perfect and eternal happiness ; whilst, in order 
to gain possession of this blissful and sempiter- 
nal inheritance, he has only to endure precisely 
the same degree of privation and torment as the 
materialist, who can in return, at best, only ex- 



98 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

pect to reap comparatively a moment's felicity. 
Thus it is, that false systems, and bad causes, 
have had more martyrs than true and good 
ones. 

MATERIALISM. 

There appears to be, and, indeed, really is, a 
natural sympathy of thought, and similitude of 
ultimate conclusion pervading the minds of all 
reflecting and well-grounded materialists, which 
is alone sufficient to convince a judicious and 
distinguishing mind that materialism has truth 
for its basis ; while, at the same time, it can be 
demonstrated, that it has the mighty additional 
support of every discovered Law of Nature. 

MATTER. 

^What is matter? I cannot define it, yet all 
investigated circumstances converge to force a 
conviction of its creative potentiality; and in- 
deed, all past attempts have failed to discover 
any other primary source, power, or cause of all 
phenomena, whether physical or moral, than 
that which centres in the delicate but powerful 
relative affections of various modes of matter. 
Space is essential for the free circulatory actions 
of the numerous different bulks and forms of 
Matter, but beyond this, the formative, and qual- 
ity-giving power, apparently, must reside in the 
various inherent sublime, (and perhaps I may 
add, sexual) affections of elementary Matter.' 

Nature has given human beings a most grate- 
ful disposition to survey, investigate, and admire 
the grand operative attributes of flatter, but ap- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 89 

parently she has not endowed them with the 
means of ever arriving at a clear and absolute 
knowledge of the constructive and creative rela- 
tions of elementary matter, or enabled them to 
penetrate all the arcana of its mechanical action 
upon nerves ;* yet still, what better can we term 
it, than sad ignorance, or baleful prejudice in 
those who tenaciously assert that matter is es- 
sentially inert : — while the republic of atoms suf- 
ficiently evinces, by its ceaseless actions in the 
vast laboratory of space, its essential plastic 
power, both in the ponderous and sublimely mi- 
nute productions of Matter. 

MEMORY. 

Those who think memory, or the great stretch 
of reminiscence which accompanies a perfect sen- 
sor ium, a fir oof of the immaterial identity, or 
spiritual independence of the human mind, think 
not as I do ; but it proves to me that they have 
thought only superficially upon the matter. In 
short, ^ what is mind but reminiscence? or the 
fruits of past and present feelings, perceptions, 
conceptions, or all kind of ideas, which are all 
mere adjuncts of sensation. — Constructed as we 
are, it seems to me that memory is one cause of 
decay and death. Without nerves we can have 
no sense, and if destitute of sense we shall also 



* I conceive that various taste, or the different actions of 
the same compound upon the palate, are effected through a 
mechanical transposition of the constituent atoms. And in 
regard to some simple substances through varied crystalliza- 
tion, or configuration. 

8* 



90 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

be void of memory. If it were possible for the 
matter of which the body is composed to be en- 
tirely changed in a few minutes,* we certainly 
should be as ignorant and mindless as new-born 
children every six years,t without any recollec- 
tion of our former existence. I consider the ef- 
fects of the faculty of memory in relation to an 
individual, analogous to the results of tradition 
or written history amongst the aggregate of man- 
kind, or in regard to particular nations. The 
inhabitants of Britain at present possess a great 
deal of literary and scientific knowledge, which 
will be handed down from one generation to an- 
other, as long as the language is taught in which 
this knowledge is written. But we will suppose 
every human being above one year of age to be 
simultaneously destroyed throughout the island, 
and not another to come near it ; those remaining 
children when grown up to maturity (for some 
would live no doubt), and though a million in 
number, would never be able to benefit by, or 
understand this written knowledge and history, 
although they might have for years pillowed 
their heads upon the very volumes in which it 
is recorded. Neither will they have any recol- 
lection of their parents and ancestors. 

But, on the other hand, we see a certain regi- 
ment of soldiers wearing laurel on the anniver- 
sary-day of some extraordinary victory the regi- 



* Instead of a slow and regular exchange of granulation, 
or a simultaneous waste and supply of corpuscles. 

t If it be true that the whole of the matter of the body is 
changed every six years. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 91 

ftient gained, perhaps fifty years previous, and 
probably not a single man now in the regiment 
that was at the identical victory; yet, if we ask 
any one of the men who at present belongs to it 
what he wears laurel for, he will give as correct 
a detail of the facts as if he had actually fought 
with the regiment on that particular day, al- 
though, perhaps, 'it was before his birth. But if 
every person who saw or knew any thing about 
the battle had perished there and then, and a 
regiment bearing the same number and name 
were subsequently raised, it would not be pos- 
sible for any one of the new soldiers to give the 
least correct information as to the particular cir- 
cumstances of the battle; such as the hour it 
began, how long it lasted, and who was killed 
first, and a number of similar facts. But sup- 
pose a portion of the regiment survived the bat- 
tle, and were afterwards joined by new recruits, 
the old soldiers would impress the circumstan- 
ces of the battle upon the minds of the neiv, as 
fast as they joined the regiment, and thus keep 
the matter alive and fresh for many genera- 
tions. 

Thus it is that the memory of an individual 
from time to time re -produces impressions, and 
is continually impressing them upon the new 
perceptive matter as fast as it is added ; and, I 
think, that if we have never re-thought on an 
impression which was made seven years past, it 
is to us lost for ever.* 



* According to my present conception, I cannot believe 
that the tubes of the animal system change their component 
parts or constituent matter during life. And if all nerves 



92 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

^Can the source or powers of memory be 
more easily accounted for or understood than 
what is termed the soul, or mind? Reminis- 
cence is not matter any more than is the soul ; 
but it is a property or accident of matter, like all 
other mental phenomena ; or, in other words, it 
is dependent on matter for its existence : as sen- 
sation is clearly an accident of matter, so sensa- 
tion is also as clearly the parent of all mental 
perception. And conception and memory form 
the medium and repertory for minds of indefinite 
magnitude and importance; consequently, he 
who has the largest capacity for acutely feeling 
the greatest number of different and delicate 
sensations, and who also enjoys an equal ratio 
of reminiscential power, must necessarily pos- 
sess the greatest soul or mind; for these are 
nearly synonymous words in the English lan- 
guage, though improperly so esteemed. 

The inactive or blinded state of the visual 
power, together with the application of an addi- 
tional degree of motion or heat in the brain, are 
means well calculated to facilitate and accelerate 
the recovery of reminiscential sensations and 
ideas, and have also a strong tendency to create 
new ones. 

Memory is a repertory, whose sides or bound- 
aries are extremely elastic, and susceptible of 
receiving and retaining an indefinite quantity, 
or avast number -of ideas and reminiscences; 



are fistular, as I apprehend they must be, then I conceive 
that their age is always coeval with that of the animal; 
otherwise I cannot perceive how old age or decay is consti- 
tuted. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 93 

but it is also susceptible of being crowded or in- 
juriously satiated. 

MIND. 

Mind is not a distinct immaterial and immor- 
tal principle, such as theologians affirm it to be ; 
nor is it mere matter and motion as many talent- 
ed individuals have considered it. But being an 
accident or result of organized nervous matter, 
it is like the material man, subject to mortality.* 
For when a mind quits its living identity, or active 
mode, and ceases to have any further connexion 
with matter, as recorded on tablets, imbodied in 
history, or continued by tradition, it must inevi- 
tably cease to exist. Yet by the constant aid of, 
and union with matter, it is susceptible of sempi- " 
ternal immortality. Hence the great distinguish- 
ing superiority and vast importance of the mind 
over the mere corporeal man, of brief and de- 
finite duration. For sound philosophy cannot 
admit thus much in favour of any kind of sen- 
sitive existence; because identical sensation, is 
not in any instance or degree, susceptible of be- 
ing transferred from the living identity to any 
other known material. t While it is demonstrable 



* " The proper immortality of man is to live in the grate- 
ful remembrance of posterity, by the extension of his wise 
and benevolent designs ; and by communicating to the bo- 
soms of his descendants the just and noble sentiments that 
once animated his own." — Rev. Robert Taylor. 

t It would be unphilosophic and absurd to suppose that 
sensation can exist in the shape of a conscious identity, sepa- 
rate from, or independent of a material frame of vital exist- 
ence. 



94 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY, 

that the mind is capable of being transferred 
from the living individual, to paper, wood, stone, 
or any other solid material, which necessarily 
renders it susceptible of sempiternal immortality. 

But, on the other hand, unless we believe as 
the theologians do, we cannot possibly admit 
that any species of sensitive existence can ever 
be susceptible of immortality, or exist one mo- 
ment after the dissolution of the identical animal 
frame in which it was evinced. 

But let us return to the mind, which is neither 
more nor less than the fruit of the reminiscential 
faculty, or the aggregate of recollected sensations 
and ideas. It is the reflective vibrations and os- 
cillations of these sensations and ideas which 
ultimately generate original projections, peculiar 
thoughts, or new ideas ; and these perceptive ac- 
tions collectively comprise all mentality or the 
whole phenomena of mind. 

Many persons declare the mind to be essen- 
tially independent of the body and brain; but 
this notion cannot be correct; for the active 
mind is strictly analogous to a growing plant, 
which we know, is always dependent on the 
soil, genial fluids, and atmospherical tempera- 
ture for its progressive development, and ulti- 
mate maturity; which, however, when perfect- 
ed, is moveable, preservable, and transferable ; 
having now arrived at an entire independence of 
its primary cause and productive agents. Thus 
it is with regard to the past mind of man ; and, 
there is no present sound and vigorous mind 
without the healthy exercise of the brain and 
nervous system. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 95 

The dawn of mental power is always after 
the birth of the child, and, in general, a consid- 
erable length of time elapses before the seeds of 
mind begin to pullulate ; therefore, mind is nei- 
ther an independent immaterial principle, nor a 
distinct primary existence in the species,* for all 
mental phenomena spring from the actual use 
of the senses, in conjunction with the exercise 
of the reminiscential faculty; and when these 
progressive emanations or results of sensation 
are concentrated in memory, they become evi- 
dent, intelligible, and communicable, and form 
what /consider ought to be termed mind; which 
being thus fully developed, is transferable, and, 
consequently, susceptible of sempiternal immor- 
tality. 

MISANTHROPY ( Comparatively justifiable). 

I should most affectionately esteem my spe- 
cies, if it was what it might and ought to be ; 
but I can only loathe it, in its present degraded 
state, or while infected with ivorse than barba- 
rous morals. Experience assures me, that by 
nature the species is capable of developing every 
virtue, or good and amiable quality ; although 
practising every detestable vice and loathsome 
superstition ; loading itself with artificial misery, 
and cherishing a superstitious fear that sinks its 

* If mind were a primary and immaterial principle, how 
unmeaning and absurd the following terms would be, (which, 
however, are in very general use,) a noble mind and a mean 
mind, a great mind and a little mind, a rich mind and a poor 
mind, &c. 



96 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

boasted character far below that of beasts ; while 
on the other hand, through the poison of false 
and selfish morals, it tortures every species of 
sensitive existence that move within its baneful 
influence. Such are its present characteristic 
actions ; in place of unfolding and wisely culti- 
vating its superiour intellectual power ; and en- 
larging its mental capacity by reflection, thus 
qualifying itself for diffusing a correct knowledge 
of genuine morality; and hence extending the 
sphere of refined feeling and noble sentiment ; 
or, in other words, surrounding itself and all 
other sensitive beings that are subject to its 
sway, with such circumstances as are produc- 
tive of comfort, and which in the sequence 
would infallibly lead to general happiness. For 
until the human character distinguishes itself 
by such wise and benignant fruits, it will not 
be what a knowledge of its nature proves it may 
and ought to be. 

MISERY [Natural). 

If our senses were sufficiently minute, deli- 
cate, and cognitive, to see, feel, or hear the moan- 
ful complaints, groans, and writhing agonies that 
we involuntarily, and, indeed, must inevitably 
cause, at almost every step, turn, or remove we 
make, by crushing, wounding, and marring in- 
numerable sentient and intelligent existences; 
we should then see but too ample a cause for 
execrating an almighty Fiend, who could make 
a sentient world so subject to reflective pain, and 
eternal corporeal torment ; and where the highest 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 97 

pleasures, both physical and intellectual, are 
so deeply tinged with apprehensive gall and ex- 
perimental alloy. 

Even the most pious or godly person, who 
believes in the existence of an omniscient and 
almighty Designer of all things, and who can 
also correctly view the real condition of the sen- 
tient portion of the universe, or the feeling part 
of its almighty design and production, must have 
a very mean opinion of its goodness. 

MONARCHY. 

Monarchy is a species of government which 
is compatible only with ignorance, superstition, 
and slavery. 

There are absolute monarchies, and constitu- 
tional or limited monarchies ; but of these two 
kinds, the absolute is the most consistent with 
reason and manliness, whether it exists under 
circumstances of national ignorance or cultivat- 
ed intellect and political knowledge. 

But what is called limited hereditary monar- 
chy is the most mortifying, odious, and incom- 
patible with intelligence and national liberty, or, 
in other words, it is the most galling and incom- 
patible with the existence of a people who claim 
the title of freedom and citizenship. 

Yes, hereditary monarchy is so incompatible 
with virtuous independence, wisdom, and jus- 
tice, that these qualities and it cannot harmonize 
and long exist together. The mixture is so 
heterogeneous that it must necessarily ferment 
and produce political venom, or opposing sects 

9 



98 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

and hostile parties, and which never fail to gen- 
erate national discord and bloodshed. ^What 
has been, and now is the state of enlightened 
France, under a constitutional hereditary mon- 
archy? 

In short, political science, true virtue, and 
nobleness of character, cannot brook and exist 
with hereditary monarchy. However, I would 
here observe, that constitutional or limited mon- 
archies are necessary steps between the govern- 
ments which were established during the dark 
ages of superstition and barbarism, and those 
which must come into existence in ages of sci- 
ence and exalted wisdom. 

Hence, hereditary monarchy cannot be lasting 
under the influence of a high state of progressive 
intelligence. 

MONEY {Saving of). 

The sentimental principle which inculcates 
the practice of getting and saving money is a 
bad one. It is productive of an incalculable 
number of evils to society, akin to that of filthi- 
ness, or any other infectious vice ; for, in regard 
to the latter, when once practised by one or two 
in a family, or company of individuals, it be- 
comes next to essential, for even those who love 
cleanliness, (but who are obliged to live with 
such as are habitually filthy,) to fall into the 
vicious practice, as it were in self-defence ; for 
they will discover, that all their exertions to be 
cleanly and comfortable will prove abortive and 
useless, whilst confined within the sphere of 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 99 

filthy persons; hence may be perceived the 
analogy between the vice of filthiness, and the 
insatiable thirst for accumulating money. When 
a few dealers are resolved on saving money, and 
there being only a limited quantity of this me- 
dium distributed among the entire community, 
these dealers would, of necessity, ultimately get 
the whole into their own hands, or under their 
controul, if uninterrupted; but this consequence 
being perceived by the rest of society, the ma- 
jority of whom, also, set about saving money, at 
first merely as an act of self-preservation ; (but 
without discovering the impossibility of accom- 
plishing their object, although every means with- 
in their power be exerted to the fullest extent.) 
This unperceived, but necessary failure, is alone 
owing to the existing quantity of money being 
limited ; and thus the conduct of a trading com- 
munity resembles the scene exhibited by a 
number of ravenous dogs contending for a 
bone. 

Yes, political economists, legislators, and phil- 
anthropists, be assured, that the present widely 
diffused spirit of saving money is the principal 
cause of all the bad feeling, vice, and misery 
which now more or less afflict society through- 
out every commercial and trading population. 
And, if we could only banish from the human 
breast this insatiable thirst and unnatural passion, 
which generates every species of human vice, 
then all civilized nations, that are under the in- 
fluence and potentially beneficial effects of the 
present advanced state of arts and sciences, 
would enjoy peace, plenty, good will, and go\\^ 



100 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

nil happiness, even to the highest degree that 
the species is susceptible of realizing. 

MOTION {Astronomical, <$*c.). 

There are many persons who profess to be 
profound reasoners, and who, by others, are 
really -thought to be deep reflectors ; but hi truth, 
they are neither the one nor the other ; because 
it may be discovered, that a majority of such 
persons, when in the sphere and development 
of their profundity, advance many hypotheses 
and arguments which convince the philosophic 
mind, that they are only superficially acquainted 
Avith the subjects on which they reason ; yet at 
the same time, they pertinaciously assert that 
their doctrines and opinions alone, arc philoso- 
phic and true ; and really fancy that they have 
actually arrived at the very zenith of human 
knowledge and perfection ; while reflection 
might have taught them, that the climax of hu- 
man improvement is infinite ; or at least, it is 
clear, to a penetrating intellect, that there can be 
no definite period for the advancement of scien- 
tific knowledge ; for as long as the nature of the 
human mind remains what it is, and is allowed 
to range unmolested, it must continue to im- 
prove, and duly approximate perfection ; al- 
though it can never arrive at that point, whence 
it will not be susceptible of further progress. 

One, out of many of their profound positions, 
is, that it is impossible for the Earth to move at 
the astonishing rapidity it does, without being- 
impelled and directed by an infinite supernatu- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 101 

ral power. But if the planetary bodies moved 
with ten times the velocity they do, the fact 
would be no more wonderful to right reason, 
than it is at present, correctly and philosophic- 
ally speaking : although the orbicular motion of 
our planet, is at the "rate of one hundred and 
eighty-three miles in a single moment, yet it 
should be remembered that the earth is only a 
patient of other matter in motion* Therefore it 
is incongruous to judge of the planetary motions, 
or of the degrees of velocity in different bodies, 
by that species of analogy which may exist be- 
tween an insensate patient, whose moving agent 
is also equally insensate, and the comparatively 
tardy motions of sensitive locomotive beings. In 
truth, there is no just, or rational analogy be- 
tween the planetary motions, or indeed any of 
the motions of insensate agents and patients, and 
the motions of animals; because the former 
move purely from physical necessity, while the 
motion of the latter is the result of sensation, 
motive, design, and volition. A ponderous ship 
sometimes separates the fluid of the ocean, mere- 
ly from the agency or influence of wind, at the 
rate of fifteen or sixteen miles an hour ; therefore, 
in this case, the matter which impels the vessel, 
must move at least three times faster than the 
patient. Sometimes a dense cloud moves through 
space, at the rate of sixty miles an hour or even 
more; but in this case, the patient moves nearly 
as fast as the agent, because here, the patient is 
involved in, or completely surrounded by, the 
agent. But it is very different with regard to the 
rapid motions of locomotive intelligent beings; 
9* 



102 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

such as swift birds, fishes, race-horses, &c., who 
are under the necessity of permeating or separat- 
ing matter on all sides of their bodies, and with- 
out receiving any external assistance. Yet the 
essential source of motion, or the source of the 
powers of motion, is not altogether dissimilar 
between insensate matter, and sentient or organ- 
ized nervous matter ; as the source of the former, 
is the diffusion of fixed matter, or dense fluids, 
at least as regards the local motions upon our 
earth ; while the source of the latter is a fixed 
mass of matter, organized so as to be susceptible 
of sensation, and its following consequent, intel- 
ligence; and also capable of locally and con- 
stantly replenishing its organized frame from 
the ambient air in which it moves, and by this 
means keeps up the animal vigour and elasticity. 

Doubtless all the planetary motions, or at least, 
the orbicular, if not the rotatory or diurnal ones, 
are purely results of the motions of the sun. 

Here probably, the fanatic may start, and fan- 
cy a victory, and with enthusiastic vehemence, 
ask, ^what caused or continues the motions of 
the sun? The most rational and solid answer 
that can be given, (that is, according to my judg- 
ment,) is, that motion is coeval with matter; and 
that, to look for a first -cause of either the one or 
the other, would be unphilosophic and unreason- 
able : and we might as well expect to find a cause 
of space and time; which certainly would be vain 
and absurd ; because these are uncaused exist- 
ences and branches of infinity, consequently not 
within the reach of the highest known intelli- 
gence. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 103 

Beyond SPACE, TIME, and MATTER, the 

only Iternal essential cause of all phenomena, 
the most elevated conception, the sublimest sci- 
entific knowledge, and the most acute reason 
concentrated, can discover, is MOTION: and 
the hypothesis of a beginning of motion, is a col- 
lateral absurdity with that of the beginning of 
the existence of matter. 

NATURE. 

The word nature embraces within its capaci- 
ty of meaning every thing that is produced, or 
exists independent of motive, design, and art; 
hence, whenever the efforts of art are directed 
in such a way as to deteriorate the efforts or ac- 
tions of nature^ such exertions become useless, 
and, indeed, injurious efforts of art and design, 
and which cannot be too much exposed and 
contemned. 

OPTIMITY. 

Governments and societies can be justly 
considered in a state of human optimity only, 
when they shall have arrived at that perfection 
in arts, and high degree of scientific knowledge, 
or general philosophy, which will enable them 
habitually and fully to neutralize the greatest 
possible quantity of natural evils, also never fail 
to cultivate and enjoy the greatest possible 
amount of natural advantages, or such results 
of physical causes, as are, from the order and 
constitution of things, calculated to produce 



104 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

pleasurable sensations. This is not yet our 
condition, nor will it be, I fear, for many ages 
to come ; because, at present, there is much art 
employed, which only proves operative in dete- 
riorating the benefits presented to the species by 
nature : while the proper efforts, and just direc- 
tion of art) are to facilitate, accelerate, and in- 
crease the amount of nature's bland and munifi- 
cent gifts. 

ORBIT ELLIPSIS {Speculation). 

Section I. 

I attribute the earth's elliptical orbit to the 
obliquity of its axis; because, when the poles 
point to the sun for weeks together, which now 
is the case twice in a year (or each pole once), 
it follows that such a length of uninterrupted 
influence of solar rays must produce an unusual 
portion of evaporated matter upon the polar 
hemisphere, consequently increase the depth of 
its atmospheric gases in that part of the ecliptic; 
and which, while acting upon the ultra-mun- 
dane matter, or the more rare gases that float 
between the earth's atmosphere and the sun, 
must tend to propel the earth farther from the 
centre of its orbit. It is my firm opinion, that 
should the poles of the earth become, in the 
course of time, perpendicular to the plane of its 
orbit, it will then be found to revolve nearly in 
a uniform circle. And I conceive, that were it 
not for the moon, the earth would now diverge 
still farther from the sun, while he is acting so 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 105 

powerfully upon the arctic hemisphere, and that 
it would also approach still nearer while he is 
acting upon the anti-arctic regions. 

Section IL 

If the earth only recedes from its regular or- 
bicular line when the north pole inclines to the 
sun, I apprehend it is because the matter then 
dissipated by the solar rays upon that hemisphere 
is extremely heterogeneous, hence it is calculated 
to subsist a great length of time in its volatile 
state, or before it is condensed or refixed ; and 
thus it is necessarily raised a greater distance 
from the surface of the globe. On the other 
hand, if the earth is really nearer the sun at our 
shortest day than it is at any other time of the 
year, I think it is extremely probable that the 
matter which is evaporated by the sun's influ- 
ence upon the southern hemisphere is nearly 
homogeneous ; which, consequently, does not as- 
cend, for from the mundane surface, but is soon 
condensed and refixed, therefore cannot act upon 
the rarer and distant gases, and propel the earth 
unusually far from the centre of its orbit. But, 
on the contrary, owing to the shallowness of the 
atmospheric volume at this time, there must ne- 
cessarily be a solar approximation of the earth's 
orbicular line, or, in other words, a tendency to 
shorten the earth's distance from the sun. 

Section III. 

When the mundane sphere is in the northern 



106 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

part of the ecliptic, or that part of its annual 
journey where the north pole inclines from the 
centre of the system, the sun's chief influence 
then acts upon volatile matter, or dense and flac- 
cid fluids ; for in the southern hemisphere, where 
his rays are now so efficaciously directed, there 
is little else but water: while, on the other hand, 
in the northern hemisphere, (at this season), his 
direct radiance and influence scarcely ever reach 
the surface of the earth, owing to clouds, and 
his horizontal position ; and thus it is, (I suppose), 
that there is an unusual violence at this season, 
amongst the elements, upon the temperate zone 
of the northern hemisphere. 

PARADISE. 

When human kind shall generally abstain 
from devouring flesh, the moral world will be- 
come a real paradise, and exhibit a genuine speci- 
men of nature : then will commence the reign 
of peace, harmony, perfection, and uncontrouled 
and universal felicity. Man will no longer be a 
general enemy to sensitive existence, as he is at 
present, even to his sister being ; but he will then, 
with a steady and consistent glow of passion, seek 
and continually enjoy the society of the deserv- 
ing female; and without feeling that ferocious 
and ungovernable desire to unhinge their virtue 
and seduce them, and then, with loathful dis- 
gust, leave and expose them to the frowns of an 
ignorant, cruel, and insensate world, which has 
hitherto been so generally the case ; but in place 
of which, an increase of pure, moral, or send- 






SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 107 

mental affection will be the result of a prolonged 
acquaintance between the sexes. 

PASSIONLESS. 

He who evinces no anger, or ireful disappro- 
bation, when he sees good principles, justice, 
reason, and truth, grossly abused, has no just 
claim to the appellation of enlightened and ra- 
tional, or that of a lover of science, truth, or jus- 
tice ; nor can he ever possess a refined sensibility. 
And he, whose gravity is sufficiently strong to 
teach him never to smile, is too cold and indu- 
rate to shed the genuine tear of sympathy or 
compassion : while he who dares not inculcate 
due resentment, nor practice just revenge, is a 
mental slave, and knows not the subtle and real 
nature of the human heart, or the true source 
of moral principle, and is also incapable of bland- 
ishment and sympathy, and too insensate to 
feel a gracious spirit of forgiveness. 

PATRIOTISM. 

Patriotism, as a sentiment, is little and mean 3 
and I despise it ; but practical patriotism is, in 
most cases, virtuous action. If a philosophic and 
humane moralist be a subject of a despotism, and 
that despotism declares war against a small and 
weak, but free and virtuous nation, /can such a 
moralist be either a sentimental or practical 
patriot? I say not. It is true, that he may be 
forced, by the despotism of his own country, to 
bear the sword against the very people whom in 



108 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY* 

his heart he can but esteem and cherish. True 
virtue cannot be confined to the interests of any 
one single nation. In short, I consider patriot- 
ism, nationality, and egotism, to be children of 
the same selfish and narrow-minded family, and 
all equally unworthy of respect from the truly 
liberal and enlightened politician. 

PATRONAGE {Public). 

The progressive steps of moral science, have 
not sufficiently advanced to enable the public to 
judge, determine, and justly award the various 
proportions of favour and pecuniary encourage- 
ment that peculiar merit requires; for if the 
public were capable of justly appreciating merit, 
we should not see sach a variety of sciolists, 
quacks, knaves, and hypocrites meeting' with 
public patronage, and deriving great pecuniary 
support from the wealthy; while genuine pro- 
fessors, public benefactors, and inflexible adhe- 
rers to truth, pass unrewarded by the rich, and 
neglected by all. Hence it is, that some truly 
meritorious individuals are forced to conclude 
that superiour genius, skill, or an inviolable at- 
tachment to truth, are detrimental qualities rather 
than beneficial possessions, at least under the 
present frame of society. And it is through a 
knowledge of these unrighteous customs and 
baneful practices, that the moral philosopher feels 
no astonishment when he beholds virtue sinking 
into poverty and degradation, and vice rising 
into opulence and honour. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 109 

PENMANSHIP. 

Respecting the acquisition of a quick flow- 
ing style of hand-writing, the human hand and 
arm form as perfect and complete a machine as 
any that could be invented by art, for the attain- 
ment of this inestimable mechanical qualifica- 
tion. 

In useful penmanship there are but three dis- 
tinct and important qualities, which are legibili- 
ty, promptitude, and elegance; but the degrees 
of importance, relative to the first and last of 
these qualities, are unequal ; legibility being the 
very essence of the object of all useful writing, 
while elegance is only an ornament. Prompti- 
tude is not so much a quality of penmanship as 
a qualification of the writer's ; yet elegance can 
hardly be accomplished without it ; and he who 
seeks to write a feateous and really valuable 
hand, must attend strictly to these points and 
degrees of quality and importance : for the most 
useful style of hand- writing is that which, requir- 
ing the least difficult motion to form the entire 
alphabet, has a bold continuity of line from the 
first letter to the last of every word, and ensures 
promptitude to the writer, and the greatest de- 
gree of legibility to the reader ; hence, those who 
use the pen should always remember, that the 
sole use of all writing is to be read ; consequently 
legibility or plainness of character is of the very 
highest importance. There is no mixed, or 
mental and mechanical acquisition, so fraught 
with general importance, as that which consti- 
tutes the ability to use the pen with ease, prompti- 
10 



110 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

tude, and elegance. Indeed, the most exalted 
capabilities of human intellect must remain only- 
potential, without the prompt and frequent use 
of the pen, in the wise committal of original 
ideas and reflections to paper, in order that our 
thoughts may receive future and minute examin- 
ation by the critical acumen of our own im- 
proved mental power. Autographical habits of 
this kind never fail to generate new ideas, and 
subsequent reflections more or less copious and 
important. Time, thus spent, yields a grateful 
remembrance whenever periods of such employ- 
ment recur to our mind ; because, in general, it 
maybe found, that these periods of contemplation 
and reflection were either the means of freeing 
ourselves from errour, or adding something to 
our mental store and moral joy. The ability to 
write legibly and fluently (although considered 
by many only a minor or trifling acquisition), is 
often a primary and sometimes sole cause of per- 
sons developing and bringing to public light 
their real genius, and of their becoming, ulti- 
mately, truly philosophic, and generally useful : 
for by the prompt use of the pen, they can im- 
press, aggregate, and generalize their transient 
ideas ; and thus, subsequently, they may be stimu- 
lated to analyze, purify, or revise, and, in the 
sequel, be enabled to condense, and at pleasure 
publish, all their really valuable and important 
thoughts and conceptions ; but which, through 
the lack of an early committal to paper, would 
have been either entirely lost, or have continued 
a latent, and consequently useless treasure, both 
to the world and themselves. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. Ill 

Persons of real wit and genius, ought, above 
all others, to possess every facility and perfection 
that mechanical science can possibly unfold to 
them, which may, in any degree, appertain to the 
acquisition of penmanship, in order that the ra- 
pidity of intellectual conception be not checked 
by the tardy graphic motions of the hand. 

Adults, or inveterately ungain penmen, who 
wish to acquire a feateous style of hand, may 
easily attain this important object, by merely at- 
tending to a simple mode of using the joints of 
the shcTilder and thumb; as the action of these, 
reiterated, infallibly produces graphic facility, 
acceleration, and general command. 

If we have the assistance of infallible princi- 
ples and rules to guide us in any pursuit, strict 
attention to them on our part, will insure the 
proper fulfilment of our designs. However, I 
must here remark, that practice does not gene- 
rate principles; but that after the adoption of 
good ones, reiterated graphic action facilitates 
and accelerates the required precise motions of 
the tendons and joints during the formation of 
accurate letters ; and thus, ultimately, the active 
muscular levers sympathetically attain great 
elasticity, promptitude, and admirable facility. 

Many persons become pupils, for the acquire- 
ment of arts and sciences, whom to instruct and 
please also it is quite impossible. There must 
necessarily be a disagreeable dryness in nearly 
all truly scientific tuition, especially to those 
who are quite unacquainted with the import- 
ance of fundamental principles. 

There is such a perversity in some persons, 



112 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

in regard to all good and natural principle, that 
it is next to impossible to teach them any thing 
that is in the least degree contrary to their own 
corrupt taste and contracted views. If we deem 
a physician worthy of being employed, and we 
are desirous of benefiting by his superior know- 
ledge, it becomes folly in us not to yield to and 
abide by his directions. 

There are many who confess their great need 
of improvement, yet they neglect the very means 
of obtaining it. Youth is not always the best 
age for improvement, because adults often make 
great progress in many arts when they are re- 
duced to, and taught on scientific principles. 
From the simple but essential leverage, gene- 
rated by the action of the shoulder-joint, the hand 
is enabled to write with perfect ease and great 
rapidity throughout the entire progress of the 
longest line; and, at the same time, possesses 
the highest possible degree of graphic power : 
which are points of the first importance to the 
writer, both as regards his present sensations, 
and the style of hand produced. 

It should be remembered that the ability to 
write fluently and legibly is an invaluable quali- 
fication ; for upon this art depends almost all 
important literary progressions, and without 
much writing we cannot approximate perfection 
in any valuable science or branch of philosophy. 
And, let it be recollected, that to indulge in a de- 
sultorious manner w^hile committing our ideas 
to paper, if only for ourselves or friends to per- 
use, constitutes a discriminous practice, as well 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 113 

as a great retardation to the progress of intellec- 
tual perfectibility. 

PERFECTIBILITY {Human), 

Moral and intellectual perfection is attain- 
able,* and consists in the perception or develop- 
ment and practice of the highest possible degree 
of human excellence; I mean the highest degree 
that the species is susceptible of ultimately ar- 



riving at. 



PERMUTATION. 



A deeply-philosophic mind cannot admit 
that any part of matter can ever change its es- 
sential nature, and, therefore, it cannot be sus- 
ceptible of growing older ; but it is the commerce, 
or eternal permutation of various primary atoms, 
that causes the decay of aggregate and com- 
pounded identities in the boundless laboratory 
— space. 

PERSECUTION, 

Continued oppression, and all kinds of per- 
secution, have a great tendency to stupify, de- 
moralize, and render mankind misanthropical. 
Unhappy marriages, I conceive, often lead to the 
same, or similar fell and miserable consequences. 



* Notwithstanding all the deteriorating and humiliating 
denunciations of Christian Priestcraft. 

10* 



114 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

PHILOSOPHY {Moral). 

Genuine moral philosophy is universal 
knowledge, because it embraces, or bears more 
or less upon every other branch of valuable 
science, and it cannot be successfully pursued 
separate from what is termed natural or physical 
philosophy ; therefore human-kind can never ap- 
proximate perfection and refined happiness, bat 
in a ratio with the extent of this acquirement, 
and pleasing fruit of oscillated reflection. 

PHILOSOPHY (Ge?icral). 

Every taell-educated person is a physical and 
moral philosopher; indeed, morals are so de- 
pendant on, and interwoven with, physics, that 
an individual cannot be exclusively a moral 
philosopher. But all learned men are not phi- 
losophers ; for there are millions of persons in 
this country who have spent from five to ten 
years in schools of learning, yet there are, com- 
paratively, but a very few philosophers among 
them. Fashion and prejudice are the principal 
causes of this lamentable deficiency of well-edu- 
cated persons in the present generation. And so 
long as the schools are subject to the despotism 
of fashion and prejudice, so long will they con- 
tinue to form, and send forth a majority of vota- 
ries to folly and all kinds of absurdity, rather 
than a majority of votaries to virtue, wisdom, and 
real happiness. 

Philosophy consists not in a knowledge of lan- 
guages, theology or history, either ancient or 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 115 

modern, but to speak in a general and collective 
sense, it is comprised in a correct knowledge of 
nature ; consequently, he who has attained the 
most knowledge of the properties, powers, ac- 
tions, and relations of matter, or universal exist- 
ence, is necessarily the greatest philosopher ; 
while, on the contrary, he who know r s the least 
of these properties, powers, actions, and relations, 
is necessarily the least philosopher; but inas- 
much as he does know, so in the same ratio is 
ho a philosopher. Hence we may perceive how 
easy it is for a nation to become truly philosophic. 
Philosophy would be found of equal benefit to 
all classes of society ; indeed, the productive 
classes need its assistance even more than the 
rich and idle part of the community ; for these 
persons can afford to live unphilosophicaily. It 
should be remembered that the field, the kitchen, 
and the garment-shop, in short, all the useful 
pursuits in life, are equally adapted for the de- 
velopment and practice of philosophy, with those 
of the university, senate-house, laboratory, and 
pulpit. 

Moral philosophy is founded on sensation, or 
the capability of feeling pain and pleasure ; there- 
fore, to be a practical moralist, consists in the 
recognition of this inherent property, and a strict 
observance of its reciprocal rights in all sensitive 
beings ; and this is all that is necessary to con- 
stitute a good man. 

There are assuming pretenders to philosophy, 
but there cannot be false philosophers ; philoso- 
phy itself being limited to the boundary of truth. 



116 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

I conceive it a contradiction in terms to call a 
person a false philosopher. 

POLITICS. 

A sound knowledge of morals and politics 
ought to constitute a principal part of the ac- 
quirements and possession of every individual 
who claims the appellation of "free and ration- 
al citizen;" and all such men ought to have an 
equal voice in choosing their legislators. Eat 
through a lack of the above knowledge, in the 
majority of a nation, many of the wisest poli- 
ticians are deprived of all influence in regard to 
the making of those laws which they have to 
obey. However, the present political excite- 
ments are more cheering and gratifying to the 
lovers of truth, justice, and good government ; 
because they now see (though in the eve of the 
crisis) a considerable number of persons begin- 
ning to reflect seriously upon these two most 
important branches of science : yet, I fear, this 
reflection has been excited rather too late for 
generating timely codes of reclaiming laws, or 
such as will be found adequate to the full re- 
demption of Britain, as she is rapidly sinking 
into a most deplorable state of oppression, dis- 
tress, and vice, and apparently fast approaching 
her extinction as a great and powerful nation. 

POLITENESS. 

Politeness is much esteemed by the men- 
tally weak and the votaries of fashion, who are 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 117 

also often the despisers of civility: yet. how ex- 
cellent and superior is civility, when contrasted 
with politeness, for civility spring's from delicate 
feeling and just sentiment; while that which is 
too often considered politeness, is only a fruit of 
ridiculous and baneful fashion. What a gene- 
rous glow and elevation of soul governs the 
conduct of the truly civil, while the passion that 
sways the fashionable and ceremoniously polite, 
is vain, effeminate, cold, and little. 

It is a very easy matter for those who enjoy a 
mediocrity of corporeal and intellectual advan- 
tage, and who are also graced with a placid dis- 
position, to be sufficiently or rationally polite, 
and also to draw to themselves the smiles and 
praises of a large majority of those with whom 
they mix and converse, provided they do not at- 
tempt to call in question the wisdom, truth, and 
utility of any established creed, custom, or habit, 
or the dogmas and superstitions which, more or 
less, characterize all Christendom, nor evince a 
desire to enlighten those who are behind them in 
genuine useful knowledge. 

But to deserve the character of being fashion- 
ably polite, requires a disposition so supple, that 
it shows the party to be not only destitute of love 
of truth, but wanting also, in good taste. 

POPULATION {British). 

The present population of England would 
not now have been felt redundant, (as it is said 
to be), if the Government had only advanced in 
wisdom and equity, in a ratio with the progres- 



118 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

sive science and prolific productions of the peo- 
ple. It is through the aristocratic sway of the 
rich families that machinery is now felt an evil 
(to the various opificers and agriculturists, the 
most useful classes of the community). But, 
under the direction of a wise and just Govern- 
ment, the invention and use of machinery, would 
have become one of the greatest and brightest 
glories that ever graced mankind, and would 
have proved a source of great power and gene- 
ral comfort to the whole nation, and ultimately 
a blessing to the civilized world. While, under 
the present political and domestic arrangements, 
the Government and a few of the opulent fami- 
lies monopolize all the immense profits and ad- 
vantages which arise from invention and the 
various improvements in machinery ; and what 
is still more lamentable, these privileges exist at 
the expense of every species of independence 
and comfort of the productive classes ; and we 
may be assured that these evils will go on to in- 
crease in a ratio with the extension of science, 
invention, and machinery ; that is, until a com- 
plete reformation in government and laws can 
be effected. And, in order to consummate a foun- 
dation for a lasting prosperity and a happy state 
of society, the present avaricious views of the 
trading community must be completely aban- 
doned. 

Among the great kingdoms of the northern 
hemisphere, the British nation has for many 
years been the most industrious, enlightened, 
and powerful. But, apparently, she is now 
upon the very brink of ruin ; and, unless some 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 119 

extraordinary political circumstance, or wise and 
vigorous legislation speedily take place, she 
must sink to a state below several of the present 
European nations, and incomparably beneath 
her flourishing offspring — the United States of 
America. But I would here remark, that bad 
government has not yet corrupted and brought 
her so low, as to render her wonted prosperity 
irrecoverably lost. As the accumulated evils by 
which she has been so long oppressed, may yet 
be removed, and if they should be speedily re- 
moved, England will rise again ; and if such a 
crisis be at hand, she has not yet seen her zenith. 
Indeed, if a few wise laws can be framed, and 
made to take place of some of those pernicious 
ones now in force, they will be found quite suf- 
ficient to renovate her, and even enable her to 
rise in power, splendour, and happiness, as far 
above what she ever was, as she is now above 
imbecile and vicious Spain or Portugal. For 
England, at the present moment, possesses the 
means of being the most flourishing and happy 
nation in the world, both in a physical and moral 
point of view ; but, at present, through the influ- 
ence of aristocratical laws, the cultivators of the 
land are unable to pay their rents, and manu- 
facturers are losing money — ship-owners are 
becoming poor — merchants are complaining — 
two-thirds of the retail dealers, builders, and all 
classes of artisans, are fast approaching a state 
of bankruptcy ; and what is still more afflicting 
to the philanthropist, hundred of thousands of 
industrious persons are in a state of starvation 
and wretchedness : and how melancholy is the 



120 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY* 

prospect, when we reflect that all these evils are, 
and must remain, on the increase, unless a great 
and speedy change be effected by legislation. 
However, in my view, under the present rela- 
tions and circumstances of the nation, there are 
but two different means, within the reach of the 
Parliament, to relieve and effectually remove the 
causes of the distress of the country, and save 
it from ultimate ruin. 

The enormous weight of taxation under which 
England at present groans, is not the sole and 
only cause (as many persons assert) of the 
wretched condition of so many thousands of its 
most valuable inhabitants. I perceive most 
clearly another principal cause; and I feel con- 
fident, that if this single one be removed, all will 
soon be prosperous and well ; that is, as well as 
monarchical principles will admit of. A nation 
like England, cannot be either prosperous, com- 
fortable, or happy, while avarice forms the chief 
pursuit of nearly every individual possessing 
property, and while there is a universal thirst 
for sordid riches. " The love of money is the 
root of all evil." This text, or ancient proverb, 
constitutes one of the most important moral 
truths ever uttered; and, I presume, that there 
never was a time, and a nation, in which its truth 
was more obviously verified, than in this of our 
own ; and the public may be assured, that the 
present artificial evil, (for such it is) will not 
cease to afflict, until this unphilosophic and per- 
nicious passion for getting money, terminates, or 
is greatly abated. 

We should perceive that there is no necessary 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 121 

connexion between the amount of our wealth, 
and the number of our moral qualities, or even 
physical enjoyments, because we know of no 
definite limits to the possession of virtue, wisdom, 
comforts, or even concentrated happiness. But 
there is only a definite quantity of money in ex- 
istence to supply all ; consequently, he who gains, 
must necessarily take from others : while, on the 
other hand, we may all crave virtue, wisdom, 
and comfort, and possess them almost unlimited- 
ly, and be happy, without, in the leasts depriving 
others. Indeed, the more persons there are 
striving for the possession of these, the more 
easily they each become obtainable to all who 
seek them. 

An ardent passion for riches among a people 
under very peculiar circumstances, may, some- 
times, in a national point of view, be of great 
advantage ; but, in general, this passion proves 
more a national evil than a benefit, especially 
when a country is very populous, as England is 
at present. The concurrence of this insatiable 
thirst for sordid wealth, and dense population, 
most assuredly constitutes the cause of two- 
thirds of the present distress. The enormous 
and unjust taxation is the cause of the other 
third. A whole people may reap advantages, 
from a general thirst for riches, under the follow- 
ing circumstances : — 1. When a nation has large 
tracts of good land uncultivated. 2. When it is 
populous, and can manufacture and export with 
a profit all it can produce. 3. When it has the 
means of increasing and exporting any of its 
natural productions, that is, if these productions 
11 



122 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

leave a balance in favour of the nation exporting 
them. 4. When it is engaged in war with foreign 
nations, or only menaced by them. 

Labour and trade must always be more or less 
unprofitable, when there are too many persons 
occupied in them. Useful labour is a species of 
property which ought, above any other kind, to 
be protected by laws. The only patrimony, (if I 
may so express it), that nine-tenths of the human 
race are born to enjoy in a civilized state, is a 
right to labour for food and other necessaries ; 
but if they are deprived of the practice of this 
right, through the want of wholesome laws, they 
must be miserable indeed. 

When every kind of useful employment can 
be procured, and sufficiently rewarded, all other 
remunerations and prices will find their proper 
level, and all relations in society will gratefully 
harmonize. 

In order to lessen the present pernicious thirst 
for sordid riches among the opulent, and, at the 
same time, extend the means of comfort to such 
as depend solely on their own exertions for sus- 
tenance, I will here point out a change by legis- 
lation, whereby every important class of society 
may be placed in equitable and durable pros- 
perity, without altering, or in the least degree 
shaking, the present basis of the government. 
In order to produce this change, I propose a law 
which shall affect every person possessed of 
property to the value of five thousand pounds, 
by obliging them to pay a tax of ten per cent, 
for all the capital they choose to employ in trade 
or manufacture on their own account, the whole 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 123 

of which tax should be used for the support of 
the poor and needy. Those of ten thousand 
and upwards, to pay twenty per cent., if they 
should continue in their monopolizing spirit, and 
engross the profits of dealing, which ought to be 
obtained by those who have families to support, 
by the employment of a small capital in trade, 
and their own industrious habits. 

I consider that foreign merchants and ship- 
owners ought to be exempt from this law and 
tax. 

Doubtless this impost would, in a short time 
induce a great number of persons to retire from 
trade, and henceforward employ their capital 
through the medium of others, and thus they 
may fully enjoy the advantages of possessing an 
independency ; for, in a few years, the delightful 
districts and picturesque spots throughout the 
island would be occupied by various and com- 
modious mansions, or pretty villas, environed by 
cheering gardens, or romantic pleasure-grounds, 
and inhabited by these retiring families, who 
will here experience, (almost for the first time) 
quietude, comfort, and happiness. 

The new species of comfort and happiness 
which must be experienced by these retiring 
families, will not form a thousandth part of the 
good which will accrue to society from the above 
tax, and the retiring of wealthy families from 
their present monopolizing traffic ; for the large 
capitalists, in a great measure, rule the markets, 
and rarely buy but when they are low, and sell 
only when they are high, which proves ruinous 
to those of small capital. 



124 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

By wealthy families retiring from crowded 
towns, comfortable and healthy houses will be- 
come more within the reach of large families 
possessing only a small capital. 

If there should still remain any industrious 
persons destitute of employment, the tax drawn 
from those who would not retire from trade may 
be employed either to procure the means of pro- 
fitable labour, or supply them with the necessa- 
ries of life. 

Another mean within the power of the legis- 
lature to render the nation prosperous, powerful, 
and happy, is to allow the importation of all 
kinds of grain, timber, wool, cotton, silk, hemp, 
tallow, hides, and sugar, duty free, and entirely 
emancipated from the expensive controul and 
fetters of the excise. This would, at once, re- 
duce the rents of land to an equitable price, and 
be the means of enabling the merchant to supply 
foreign nations with British manufactured goods 
for one-half the price they can at present. Un- 
der such a change of policy as this, England 
would find a demand for all she could manufac- 
ture, and at a price which would be found profit- 
able to all persons engaged in the production. 

POTENTIALITY (Material). 

I cannot perceive any just reason to doubt 
the creative potentiality of matter, when under 
peculiar circumstances and the vivific influence 
of the sun. We should never contemn, but, on 
the contrary, always cherish and encourage the 
genius of speculative philosophy ; because it is 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 125 

eminently calculated to remove baneful dogmas 
and loathsome superstitions, without the effort 
or desire of founding any of its own, and, at the 
same time, furnishes numerous and important 
subjects for demonstration, but which, without it, 
would never be brought to the tests of discussion 
and experiment. 

If matter do not possess either the property to 
feel or to move by its own energies, i how are 
the material affections or operations of the stom- 
ach to be accounted for? When the stomach is 
overcharged with any principle of aliment, or in 
an unhealthy state, it craves a supply of different 
matter, or such elements as are best calculated 
to restore it to a sound and comfortable state. 
i How can all this happen, if matter can neither 
ieel nor move by its own inherent properties? 
Again, ^how is it that all sensation and mental- 
ity is more or less affected by the actions of mat- 
ter taken into the animal system, if the elements 
have no inherent properties of motion or sensa- 
tion ? 

Although I cannot demonstrate the vitally 
plastic attributes of matter, or, indeed, clearly 
perceive the vast and various formative powers 
of elementary corpuscles, yet I deem it soundly 
rational, at least for the present, to admit their 
potentiality, under specific relations and particu- 
lar circumstances, even to the creation, organiz- 
ation, or formation of every identity in the uni- 
verse. 



ir 



126 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

PRAYER. 

By saying that we can possibly receive either 
good or evil from God, through the mediation 
of prayers addressed to him by others, is nothing 
less than calling in question the inflexibility of 
his justice, and the immutability of his mind ; 
for that which is fixed by omnipotence, infinite 
goodness, and unerring wisdom, cannot be alter- 
ed without the annihilation of these omniscient 
attributes. Perhaps it may be said in answer to 
this, that the Deity willed from eternity (if we 
can comprehend this term), that there should 
ever be some persons to petition him for others, 
at certain times, and in particular cases, (all fore- 
known, of course, to him). Admit this, and we 
destroy at once the boasted free agency of man, 
and adopt, in the fullest degree, the doctrine of 
predestination, and, of course, by the same prin- 
ciple, wipe away all merit, sin, and crime, or, 
in other words, all human responsibility ; be- 
cause, no prudence, virtue, or justice, can pro- 
duce the least change in God's eternal decrees : 
therefore, if men live, and commit sin, they only 
fulfil his commands, or act agreeably to his pre- 
ordinations; consequently, if predestination be 
founded in truth, God is proved by it to be an 
unjust being, at least in regard to his dealings 
towards the human race ; that is, if he in the 
least degree, punish them for doing what he or- 
dained they should do. As for myself, I am 
perfectly satisfied, that man has not a free will, 
but he lives and acts from inevitable necessity ; 
or, that all his rational actions are guided by in- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 127 

voluntary motives, or they are effects determined 
by the strongest motives ; * yet, however, this is 
not predestination, but material, moral, and all- 
puissant necessity, because there is no discover- 
able super-human will to direct the primary 
cause of their actions, or, in other words, it is 
not prescious will that creates first impulses. 
What I mean by inevitable necessity is, that all 
events must, necessarily, happen as they do, from 
the essential connexion that always exists be- 
tween cause and effect. But I cannot admit 
that any cause or effect has ever been determin- 
ed on, or pre-ordained by an absolute will, or 
decreed by an eternal, independent power. If 
the being we term God, abhors vice, his nature 
must bear some analogy to our own, for, without 
sensation, neither vice nor virtue could have an 
existence, and it is alone through our capacity 
to feel pain and pleasure, that we derive all 
moral knowledge. 

PRECEPTS. 

Precepts and apothegms rarely incite and 
lead persons to virtuous conduct: they require 
to be inspired and animated by stronger motives 
than those of words and precepts. Motives of 
secular interest are essentially requisite to excite, 
and resolve them to action in any important 



* It should be remembered, that volition is a consequence 
resulting from more or less of reasoning; hence, we can 
only will and determine necessarily, or on the side of the 
strongest motive, — which motive we have not the power 
to originate. 



128 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

moral pursuit : hence the inefficacy of preaching 
rewards and punishments, beyond the experi- 
ence of their physical and terrestrial senses. 

PREDICAMENT. 

Let us have a glance at the vaunted order 
and harmony of the world. When the mind 
takes cognizance of the aggregate phenomena 
of the mundane sphere, the contemplation of the 
vegetable system produces pleasurable sensa- 
tions ; and, when we scan the physical properties 
and powers of the greatest part of animal exist- 
ence, the resulting sensations are truly delight- 
ful. But when we take a deep, just, and generic 
view of the moral relations, the inevitable clash- 
ings, and painful condition of the innumerable 
species which compose the vast mass of nervous 
matter, we are involuntarily constrained to affirm, 
that the sensitive and moral universe is not an 
existence highly calculated to yield pleasurable 
emotion to the philosophic and universal philan- 
thropist, or to one who can and does feel for all 
grades of sensitive being. 

PREJUDICE {Public), 

We have a sufficient proof of the blind and 
vicious state of society, in knowing that the 
honest supporters of truth, and the bold opposers 
of baneful principles, vicious customs, and ri- 
diculous fashions, are either hated, censured, or 
treated with disregard by an overwhelming ma- 
jority of the present community. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 129 

Indeed, the character and qualities of nearly 
all really superiour individuals, are estimated by 
a rule, contrary, and opposed to truth and justice. 
While they who have no love for truth, or such 
as scarcely possess a single valuable idea of their 
own, but who are ever following in the circles 
of all the absurdities which have been adopted 
by weak, visionary, or vicious persons, are ex- 
tolled, and their character estimated, by a ratio 
of esteem directly contrary to what it merits. 
Such is the popular judgment and practice of 
the present day. 

PRIDE {Aristocratic). 

There are classes of persons, whose mean 
pride constitutes so large a share of their charac- 
ter, that when they discover superiour intelli- 
gence, wisdom, beneficence, &c, united with 
pecuniary necessity, or, in other words, when 
they find splendid talents, and exalted virtues, 
centering in an individual, who is oppressed by 
poverty, their wonted mode as it were, at once 
becomes frozen, and they, with a mien of aristo- 
cratic distinction, tacitly endeavour to make you 
perceive, that they wish to shrink from any con- 
nexion or friendly intercourse with such a mix- 
ture of characteristics. 

PRIVILEGE. 

Political privileges are results of injustice, 
whether they proceed from kings or laws ; be- 
or natives of a civilized coun- 



130 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

try, each individual has the same natural rights ; 
and hence, for governours and legislators to act 
justly towards a people, this natural principle 
must be obeyed in politics. I will here remark, 
that any possession or enjoyment which can be 
proved to be a right, is essentially so, and not a 
privilege ; for the terms right and privilege form 
an antithesis ; consequently, political privileges 
are unjust immunities. 

But this essential principle in politics does not 
also equally apply to private privileges, because 
there is an essential difference between these and 
political privileges ; for we all possess more or 
less of personal property, or the means of con- 
ferring privileges: hence, I conceive, that, as in- 
dependent individuals, we have a just or natural 
right to bestow private privileges, or, in other 
words, to practise favouritism. But let it be re- 
membered, that honesty requires us to act justly 
to all; therefore, to bestow private privileges or 
favours, without infringing on the limits of jus- 
tice, we must go a little beyond what justice de- 
mands of us : for if we bestow private privileges 
without acting justly towards all, we thereby 
merit a similar odious character to those govern- 
ours and legislators, who appropriate political 
privileges, and, consequently are, like them, es- 
sentially unjust. 

Human laws may term privileges, rights ; but 
these laws are not always correct, and compat- 
ible with nature : yet it is from nature alone, that 
we can draw correct notions of ethics ; and, to 
be strictly just, we must act in strict accordance 
with nature, because the human species form a 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 131 

portion of nature ; and, as the power of feeling 
pain and pleasure, constitutes the all-important 
part of the species, so, without this power of feel- 
ing, there could not exist either moral or im- 
moral conduct, or good or bad actions. 

PROBLEMATICAL. 

The evident lenitude of the stupendous oper- 
ations and phenomena, which are continually in 
progress within the mundane sphere, lead some 
philosophers to conclude that it is in every rela- 
tion an eternal orb. But, man — he who gains 
all his ideas through the medium of his nerves, 
or limited senses — cannot have a just, clear, and 
full conception of time, space, and matter. 

Time and matter are the two eternal elements, 
which act in the theatre, space, and exhibit uni- 
versal change ; or alternate effect and cause, or 
production and decay, and to the powers and 
duration of which, no term can be justly applied. 
After the deepest reflection I can give the subject, 
it appears nearly as probable to me, that the 
present bulk of the earth may have had a begin- 
ning, as that it should be co-existent with its 
materials, or the elements of which it is com- 
posed. That its crust or surface has undergone 
great and numerous changes is evident enough ; 
and, perhaps, it may in certain periods of time, 
generate the means by which it is almost turned 
inside out, and thus the destruction of many of 
its vegetable and animal existences follows as a 
natural consequence ; and, in all probability, 
from the same principle of progressive change 



132 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

of surface, periods would arrive, pregnant with 
various species of new existences, both vegetable 
and animal. Hence, it is natural that these 
existences should also be ultimately swept from 
the face of the earth. 

PROGRESSION {Mental). 

While the human organism continues to en- 
joy and exercise all its functions, so long will 
the species continue to increase in knowledge 
and wisdom, in a ratio with the advancing 
number of generations. Hence it is, that so 
many persons are now becoming theological 
sceptics; and the religious persecution which 
still pursues those who evince a bold freedom of 
thought, gives an impetus to the mind, and thus 
facilitates the detection of imposture, and, conse- 
quently, accelerates the downfall of superstition: 
just as a restless curiosity, in conjunction with 
thoughtfulness, form one of the most powerful 
incitations to mental action and energy, and ul- 
timately lead the mind to the acme of power or 
intellectual potentiality. 

Time, or past and passing events, have already 
so invigorated the lips of truth, that they now 
dreadlessly stem the mighty torrents of priestcraft 
and falsehood, and will, ere long, burst forth upon 
the fanatical multitude with astounding splen- 
dour, and achieve a complete victory over errour 
and superstition, and hurl from the regenerated 
mental world all the gloomy and desolating 
fiends of religion ; and fix, in their places, per- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 133 

durable codes, and other monuments of virtue, 
wisdom, justice, and truth. 

PROJECTILE (Mundane). 

It is palpably evident to reflective common 
sense, that the earth is not now, nor has it been, 
for thousands of years, the patient of a projectile 
force; or, in other words, it does not move in 
its orbit from the influence of any such force ; 
because, the relations of the poles with the sun 
and orbit, when first projected, must have con- 
tinued the same, so long as the earth remained 
a patient of that force. 

PROMISES. 

We should never make promises in positive 
terms, unless we are fully determined to perform 
them, and, at the same time, are absolutely cer- 
tain, that it is perfectly within our power to ac- 
complish, to the fullest extent, all we lead others 
to expect. We ought to use the conditional if 
when there can be any doubt regarding the pos- 
sibility of fulfilling our engagements. If this 
rule were observed, persons of good judgment 
and prudence, or such as wish to make and up- 
hold in society rational arrangements, would 
rarely be so seriously disappointed, as they are 
at present, through the positive language used 
by those who so readily make promises they 
may not be able to perform. 

When a person knows there is any probability 
of his not being able to redeem a promise he 
12 



134 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

makes, not to raise a doubt in the mind of those 
to whom it is made, argues a great want of feel- 
ing and honesty. 

PROVIDENCE (Superhuman). 

Human motives and actions are exceedingly- 
subtle, intricate, and embarrassing; and often 
beyond our power to trace. Yet, before we talk 
so flippantly about providence, as a power con- 
trouling and directing these motives, it would, 
in my view, be a much more philosophic and 
wise procedure, first to endeavour to discover, 
whether there does, exist any immaterial and 
superhuman intelligent power, which rules the 
affairs of the human race ; and, whether the im- 
mense existences of the universe, are not en- 
tirely independent of motives and volitions ; and 
whether they are not purely contingent results 
of some fortuitous chain; yet, at present, in 
general parle, we make as much use of this hy- 
pothetical being, called providence, as if it were 
a palpable personage, of whose existence, no one 
in his senses, could, for a moment, entertain a 
doubt. But, I would ask, i who has the least 
correct or rational knowledge of such an exist- 
ence? 



"b" 



PUNISHMENT. 

The mere hanging, or taking the life of a 
murderer, is, in truth, no punishment at all, 
when contrasted with the perdurable horrours, 
which, from his conscious susceptibility 3 he 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 135 

must necessarily endure, if permitted to live ; 
yet, at the same time, a law would neither be 
expedient nor just, which should tolerate his 
mixing at will with society; but, on the con- 
trary, it is absolutely necessary to punish severe- 
ly, all who commit murder, purely for motive- 
force to others. The only remedy for human 
vice, or sure safeguard against it, is genuine 
moral knowledge ; and, it must be remembered, 
that this knowledge consists in a thorough ac- 
quaintance, or full and clear view of human na- 
ture, and the true relation it bears to the rest of 
the universe, more especially to that part of 
sensitive existence, which glows within the 
sphere of human influence. 

QUERY. 

It appears to me, that we have a greater 
aptitude to forget our periods of difficulty and 
painful sensations, than we have to cease to re- 
member our fortuitous pleasures and grateful 
associations. If this view of our remembering 
faculty be correct, i ought we, therefore, to con- 
sider this natural tendency of our senses as an 
ameliorating reminiscence, or a lamentable fac- 
ulty of our nature ? 

QUESTION. 

lis it not more safe and rational to adhere to 
the privative term, which may appertain to, or 
be connected with, any hypothesis or position, 
of the truth or existence of which we have no 



136 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

proof? Indeed, of that which the highest state 
of intellectual power, or the deepest contempla- 
tions, together with the most lengthened and la- 
borious researches and reflections, will not afford 
us the least knowledge. 

I Are all the sensible qualities and phenomena 
of nature, effects arising from the existence of 
multitudinous elements of matter, or are they 
results of a few essences only, under various 
modes of mechanical combination ? There are, 
I believe, chemists, who still hold to the old 
doctrine of three or four elements only. My 
present opinion is, that there are a multiplicity 
of essences, or a great and unknown number of 
elements. 

I How is the dense, or comparatively opaque 
gliding cloud suspended? It must be lighter 
than the diaphanous medium upon which it 
floats, yet it is not pervious to the solar rays, or 
it is not transparent like the stratum beneath, 
and which buoys it ; it appears therefore, that 
the cloud must contain a different element, or a 
portion of particles of matter differently arranged 
to that on which it swims. 

I Can a body, which is placed within a defin- 
itive space, with fixed and close boundaries, be 
made colder by the mere mechanical movement 
or circulation of the fluid medium which floats 
within these boundaries, if the temperature of 
both body and air be the same? Health and 
energy, I conceive, may thus be increased, but 
not coldness. 

When a question is well and seriously put to 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 137 

an intelligent and ingenious individual, it is al- 
ready half answered. 

READING PUBLIC. 

Touching morals, politics, and ail important 
intellectual taste, how shall the moral philoso- 
pher graduate, or at what degree of public worth 
can he estimate the judgment, virtue, or wisdom 
of a reading 'public that contemn all philosophic 
and literary productions which merit a similar 
character to the works of Hume, Diderot, D'Hol- 
bach, Godwin, Shelley, &c, and who, with au- 
dacious insolence, declares the authors of such 
truly inestimable works, detestably immoral, and 
deserving the execrations of the human race ; or, 
at best, not fit to have more liberty than is al- 
lowed within the boundaries of a mad-house. 

Now, to be brief, experience obliges me to af- 
firm, that such a reading public form a state of 
society less rational, less virtuous, and far less 
desirable than that which exists among the com- 
paratively ignorant Indians, who inhabit the 
unchristianized parts of the world. For my 
own part, I feel a perfect contempt for a reading 
public, which has not the least just claim to the 
noble character, that refined feeling, the study 
of nature, and a sound love of truth and justice, 
never fail to generate. It should be remember- 
ed, that the existence of a reading public does 
not necessarily ensure a just, wise, and virtuous 
public. 12* 



138 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

REASON. 

The common acceptation of the noun reason 
naturally leads us to conclude that it means a 
distinct attribute or essential faculty of man, 
Very similar to that of sensation or perception; 
but this view of the term reason is not correct, 
for it is not a primary power or existence, but 
only a consequence or adjunct of sensation, be- 
cause we may discover that it has no develop- 
ment but in mental reflection. In short, the 
words reason and mental inflection are perfectly 
synonymous terms : hence, reason is to sensation 
what motive is to simple excitation ; therefore, 
human reason is only an oscillatory action upon 
recoverable sensations and ideas, or, in other 
words, to reason, is neither more nor less than 
to practise thought and reflection, which actions 
are alternately cause and effect, and each equal- 
ly derived from reminiscential sensations, or re- 
coverable mental impressions. 

REFLECTION [Mental). 

Reflection alone makes the philosopher and 
the moral man. Without reflection we embrace 
as truth every kind of errour and absurdity, and 
what is still more lamentable, tenaciously retain 
them. ^What important truth do we arrive at 
without reflection? None. ^But what impor- 
tant moral truths are there beyond human reach? 
Scarcely any. By meditation and oscillated re- 
flection, we can attain almost every truth and 
valuable species of knowledge. Without reflec- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 139 

lion, we cannot discover truth from errour, even 
when they are both in glowing colours before 
us. 

To arrive at moral truths, we must turn our 
attention inwardly, or to ourselves, and trace 
our actions and volitions to our desires and mo- 
tives : I mean not motives of our own making, 
for we cannot create motives for ourselves, but 
to those motives which to us involuntarily arise, 
and ultimately determine our volitions and ac- 
tions. 

Moral studies require a great and vigorous os- 
cillation of reflection ; and hence it is, that all 
the equations of moral knowledge are often more 
or less doubtful, while those of physical science 
are in general absolutely certain. Thought can- 
not be separated from reflection : for much re- 
flection generates projective thought, or what 
may be termed original ideas. 

Follies and Evils through a want of 

Reflection, 

For want of reflection parents send their chil- 
dren to school a series of years to learn the great- 
est absurdities. 

In regard to penmanship, for want of reflec- 
tion, many persons take great pains and waste a 
deal of time, to render their hand-writing con- 
fused, or difficult to read. 

Persons, after paying a double tax* for glass 
windows to admit light into their rooms, for 

* In England glass is taxed, and windows also. 



140 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

want of reflection, go to another expense for 
drapery to darken and block up the best part of 
them,* and which drapery farther serves to col- 
lect dirt, and harbour spiders, &c. People in 
cold countries, feeling a desire to render their 
houses warm and comfortable, make large fires 
at one end or side of their rooms, and then, for 
want of reflection, allow the greater part of the 
heat to escape up the chimney as soon as it is 
produced, in place of retaining it to warm the 
room; consequently, the individuals who sit by 
these wisely-contrived fires, have the pleasure 
of roasting on one side, and at the same time 
freezing on the other. 

After roasting meat to give it a fine flavour, 
many persons, for want of reflection, pour hot 
water upon it, which partly defeats their object, 
for it certainly destroys a portion of the fine fla- 
vour it received from being a long time in the 
open air before the fire. And for a farther want 
of reflection, the water, or rather slop, (but which 
is now called gravy), is kept in the dish, and 
serves to besmear such of the company as sit 
within a few yards of the carver, whose is any 
thing but a genteel and refined employment. 

For want of reflection, persons have sign- 
boards so bedecked and flourished over that it is 
scarcely possible to decipher them. 

If persons saw things and circumstances as 
they really exist, I cannot believe that they would 
be so knowingly absurd as to act in opposition 



* For the light admitted through the upper row of squares 
in a window, is worth all the rest below them. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 141 

to their own comfort and pecuniary interests, 
yet, however, they do thus act, at least in seven 
instances out of ten : hence, I presume, it is the 
want of due reflection that prevents them from 
seeing existences in their true light. 

For want of reflection, individuals incur a 
positive expense in mattresses to furnish them- 
selves with debilitating beds, which, by being 
elevated to midway between the floor and the 
ceiling of the room, they become both awkward 
and more or less unhealthy, and most certainly 
very enervating ; and the vast quantity of hair, 
moss, or straw, used for this purpose, facilitates 
the breeding of insects and the increase of dirt. 

For want of reflection, persons buy deep and 
very narrow cups for the purpose of drinking 
coffee out of, which are very unpleasant and 
annoying, for they absolutely prevent the pleas- 
ure which might be experienced in taking it out 
of convenient cups. 

For want of reflection, persons will stand and 
talk together, blockhead-like, on the middle of 
paved ways in crowded towns, and thus obstruct 
the common path ; consequently, in the course 
of a few minutes, some hundreds of other pas- 
sengers are (on account of these two or three 
dolts) obliged to turn off into the gutter or car- 
riage road. Such incommodious conduct exists 
only through a lack of due reflection. 

There ought to be a law to enforce a fine for 
standing, and also for walking more than two 
abreast, or linked side by side upon the paved 
ways in populous towns. 

In short, for want of due reflection, springs all 



142 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

bad taste,* and a countless number of absurdities, 
follieSj and evils. 

REFORM. 

The world can be refined and improved only 
by the removal of absurd notions, principles, and 
customs, and the adoption of good ones in their 
places. Hence, may be perceived, the utility 
and importance of the enthusiastic exertions of 
insulated individuals of inventive and discrimi- 
native powers in the wide field of reform: for by 
the perseverance of a few philosophic philanthro- 
pists, the moral world may, in a few years, "be- 
come sufficiently renovated and improved, to 
render the virtuous successful, the honest hap- 
py, and the wise powerful. 

RELIGION. 

The following is my rule of action and ad- 
vice to all who need moral instruction, which 
contains I believe the essential, though easy,t 
duty of man ; and which, if generally observed, 
will prove highly beneficial to human-kind, and 
to all sensitive existence that moves within the 
circle of human influence, also a sure guide to 
individual virtue and general happiness. 



* I consider all moral and sentimental taste to result from 
some degree of cultivation, consequently it is artificial; while 
that taste which is purely natural, is limited to the physical 
senses, hence, fixed beyond the power of science to change. 

t For I find but little difficulty in practising the whole, and 
that part which at first may appear hard to perform, will sooa 
become, in a high, degree, both easy and agreeable. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 143 

Embrace no religion that is inconsistent with 
the attributes of a just God, or derogatory to an 
immutable governour ; or such tenets as can 
have the least tendency to deteriorate our inher- 
ent esteem for human nature, or lessen our love 
for the eternal principles of truth and justice. 
Be industrious, moral, and strictly just. For 
your own sake, never lose sight of prudence. 
Be always candid and sincere ; because dissim- 
ulation is for ever detestable, and often the par- 
ent of innumerable evils and many great crimes. 
Strive to feel grateful under all circumstances, 
because your calamities will never be so painful 
but you will perceive that they might be more 
so. Study Nature, learn and obey her laws; 
but waste not your valuable time in acquiring a 
knowledge of those things which are not es- 
sential to your own comfort, or the felicity of 
others. 

Love your fellow-beings of all nations and 
distinctions,* and do them all the good in your 
power, but no evil. 

Be tender and even kind to all inferiour ani- 
mals, because cruelty is positively the greatest 
of all crimes. 

Set not your heart on sordid riches, but by a 
virtuous and equitable life, enjoy as great a de- 
gree of happiness as you can. 

Strive to preserve your own existence, be- 
cause your life may be highly valuable to others ; 
but fear not to die, because having lived a virtu- 



* I mean not your unjust and implacable enemies, for this 
would tend to degrade the natural dignity of man, and be 
insulting justice itself. 



144 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

ous and equitable life, you can have nothing to 
fear in death from a God who is perfectly just. 

REPUTATION. 

I think the measure of a man's desire of a 
posthumous reputation is also pretty near the 
measure of his rational enjoyment of life. If this 
conception of these feelings be near the truth, 
then, what a sorry portion of happiness must 
fall to the lot of those persons who are entirely 
reckless of reputation. 

RESPECTABILITY. 

There are two kinds of respectability : these 
I shall term extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrin- 
sical respectability is comprised of fashion and 
show, and this is the prevailing respectability 
of the present day. On the other hand, a per- 
son's intrinsic respectability depends on his mo- 
ral and intellectual qualities, which, of course, 
embrace his mechanical or professional skill. 
Hence the real value and respectability of any 
person^ depend on his good qualities and gene- 
ral disposition for usefulness. 

RIGHTS. 

The principal natural rights are those of free- 
dom to move from place to place upon the earth, 
to breathe the common air, — to eat, drink, and 
sleep. In short, to gratify, as far as we can, all 
natural appetites, wants, and passions, that is. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 145 

without invading the same rights in others; 
these are purely natural and individual, and be- 
long to, or are equally claimable by, every spe- 
cies of animal. 

Political, social, and domestic rights are of a 
complex and somewhat artificial character, be- 
ing founded upon the physical, intellectual, and 
moral qualities of our nature, and local social 
arrangements ; consequently, vary, according to 
the different circumstances under which the 
compacting parties exist ; therefore, I need not 
here attempt to name, or explain them. The 
great cause of democratical retrogradation, and 
the absolute loss of political rights at various 
periods in different nations, has been the inven- 
tion and establishment of political privileges ; 
for the words right and privilege have been 
considered synonymous terms, while, in reality, 
there ought to be a wide distinction observed 
between them ; because political rights are what 
every individual of a political community can 
justly demand; but political privileges imply 
something partial, particular, or exclusive, and, 
consequently, form unjust favours. 

Political immunities or exemptions under cer- 
tain circumstances, are justly admissible, but 
political privileges are, in every instance, unjust ; 
the former being only what may be termed pas- 
sive privileges of short duration, while the latter 
are active and lasting, and must, necessarily, 
operate injuriously upon all who possess them 
not. 

13 



146 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

RIVERS. 

What a sweet elevation of sentiment and 
sublimity of conception accompany a prolonged 
reflection upon the nature and course of rivers ; 
for the banks and slopes of brooks, lakes, and 
rivers, embrace the principal beauty and gran- 
deur of the mundane surface. 

REVOLUTION (glorious). 

The word revolution, in the minds of a large 
number of persons, is associated with dreadful 
ideas, and sentiments of horrour;* this is in 
consequence of several of them having been ac- 
companied with terrible crimes, bloodshed, and 
desolation. However, we should perceive that 
a political revolution may be effected by moral 
means, and thus be productive of unmixed good, 
as well as by the violent force of arms and blood- 
shed. 

But, unfortunately, it is not the virtue, justice, 



* When the news first reached London, of the late revo- 
lution in Paris, a gentleman, with whom I am acquainted, 
immediately put upon his shop window a placard, headed a 
"Glorious Revolution in France/' which created such a feel- 
ing of horrour in most of those who read it, that he was 
branded with the name of bloodthirsty and execrable mon- 
ster. Notwithstanding this, in less than a fortnight, the 
term and sentiment of "Glorious Revolution" had become 
nearly universal, not only in London, but throughout the 
greater part of England. Such is the force and effect of 
prejudice and fashion. 

The Revolution was really glorious, but the mass of the 
people had not discernment sufficient to perceive it, conse- 
quently they condemned both the term and the sentiment. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 147 

and courage, engaged in the endeavour of revo- 
lutionizing a bad government, that stamp its title, 
but the good or ill success of the attempt. If the 
revolutionists be defeated, their efforts and char- 
acters will be condemned and execrated by the 
unthinking multitude. But if successful, their 
names will be enrolled on the scroll of honour, 
and the revolution they have effected, will be 
pronounced great, good, and glorious. 

It is reproachfully said of the French people, 
that they are politically restless ; be it so, instead 
of this political inquietude being censurable in 
them, it really redounds to their honour; for 
they have had, and still continue to have, ample 
cause for political fermentation ; hence it is pro- 
verbial, that Louis-Philippe's throne is not based 
on a solid and lasting foundation. If this should 
prove true, so much the better for France, and 
all other civilized nations. We should perceive 
and bear in mind, that it was not the same vir- 
tue, the same wisdom, the same courage and ex- 
traordinary valour, which effected the overthrow 
and destruction of the French government, and 
drove Charles the Tenth from his throne, that 
also framed and set up the new monarchy. No, 
for those extraordinary men, women, and chil- 
dren, who displayed such glorious courage and 
splendid qualities during the three last days of 
July, 1830, were republicans, and Christians 
only in name. But having achieved this ardu- 
ous and brilliant work, (the total destruction 
of a political despotism), it would seem, that 
their conscious knowledge of the political igno- 
rance and theological slavery of the rest of Eu- 



148 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY, 

rope, noiv forced on these great spirits a fearful 
and fatal pause ; and induced them to lay down 
their arms, and, meanwhile, allowed others, who, 
with an unrighteous mixture of republican cant, 
and sly aristocratical malapertness, to finish this 
work, (so gloriously began), by sowing new 
seeds of tyranny, and planting another fair-look- 
ing, but real root of political despotism, in the 
very place whence the other had so recently 
been rooted out, Hence the people of Paris, and 
all France, have a cause to be agitated, and dis- 
satisfied with the hasty and exclusive mariner 
in which the new government was meditated 
and determined on; hen.ce,we should hope, that 
on the very first sign or symptom of monarchi- 
cal or aristocratical oppression, the people will 
re-inhale the glorious spirit, and, with equal 
promptitude and honour, overturn the present 
political structure of France. 

But when they shall again accomplish such a 
physical, moral, and political potentiality, may 
they also evince that firm philosophy and pru- 
dence, that will ensure the retention of this 
mighty power within their own hands, which 
will, in spite of their pretended friends, enable 
them to complete their own glorious work, and 
establish upon a perdurable basis, the best po- 
litical system of government hitherto discovered, 
which, doubtless, is a pure republic. 

I would here ask those who advocate the 
principle of monarchy, £ whether the late exten- 
sive and most destructive European wars, which 
were commenced to crush free and philosophic 
France, would have taken place, if England had 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 149 

been a republic, at the time of the first revolution? 
If hereditary monarchy were superseded, indi- 
vidual nations would then be at liberty to estab- 
lish whatever form of government they might at 
any time desire, without the least fear of calling 
down upon themselves the savage vengeance of 
other nations, for political changes in their own 
state. 

SANITY. 

Perfect sanity depends on a pure and deli- 
cate organization of brain or nervous system, 
which is ever susceptible of feeling the just force 
and importance of every surrounding excitement. 
To such a perfect and inquisitive organism (if 
circumstances have rendered deep reflection a 
pleasing habitude), superstition ultimately be- 
comes one of its most loathsome objects of re- 
fiection* 

SECTARISM. 

To support the priests of the various sects of 
Christians in the United States of America, re- 
quires about fifty millions of dollars annually, 
which is a sum sufficient to inculcate good mo- 
rals all over the world, if judiciously expended 
for such a philanthropic and righteous purpose; 
which would ultimately ensure for the human 
race universal peace, virtue, and the greatest 
possible amount of general happiness, in place 
of extending the venomous results of Christian 

sectarism. 

13* 



150 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY* 

SEEING. 

The advantage of seeing with both eyes at 
once is not confined to the viewing of a greater 
field of objects, and these more clearly ; but by 
the aid of the visual power of both eyes at once, 
we are absolutely enabled to see objects directly 
behind small, opaque bodies, or on the opposite 
side (in relation to ourselves) of solid. substances. 
The eye has a capability of diverging and con- 
verging its visual power, which, perhaps, is not 
easily accounted for; but through this medium, 
I think, is derived the power of seeing an object 
single with both eyes at once* 

It will be a great and important improvement 
in optics, whenever a telescope shall be invented 
which will admit the visual power of both eyes 
to pass through its lenticular medium at the 
same time. 

SELF-EXPLICATIVE. 

Doubtless, the following laconic explanatory 
address, will equally well apply to thousands of 
cases, as to that of my own. 

To all friends and associates, who remain in 
moral and theological darkness, and who frown, 
or lament at my renouncing that religious thral- 
dom, which formerly limited the range of my 
intellectual activity, and gave a gloomy tinge to 
all my views and conceptions of natural exist* 
ences : I would now assure ye all, that deep 
and mature reflection, together with an ardent 
love of truth and justice, have effected an im- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY, 151 

portant change in my habits, and made me too 
independent, (in a moral point of view), to deem 
it in the least degree necessary to spend any 
more of my time in listening to fanatical priests 
and religious knaves, who, if again implicitly 
followed, and confidentially relied on, would in- 
evitably cause me to retrograde in moral and 
intellectual character, and, in the sequel, reduce 
me to a state of patiency to those who are more 
ignorant, and far less honest than myself; there- 
fore, having passed the mood of mind, which 
was in accordance with your present feelings, 
sentiments, and opinions upon moral and theo- 
logical subjects, it is only an act of candour and 
justice on my part, to say, that the most mature 
reflection, and a mass of important experience, 
Warrant the conclusion, that my present views 
and judgment, as to the truth and value of the 
religious principles, dogmas, and opinions which 
continue to sway your conduct, and hold your 
rational faculties in awful bondage, would be 
acknowledged, if weighed in the scale of truth, 
to be of much more credible weight than those 
of your own. 

And as my views and sentiments upon a va- 
riety of subjects, but more particularly those 
which bear upon morals, politics, and theology, 
are now concisely before the public, if I am in 
any important errour upon these weighty affairs, 
I hope some efforts will be speedily made to set 
me right, by those who condemn the change 
they see effected in my opinions and habits; for 
a most sincere love of truth and justice, together 
with a delicately humane regard towards all 



152 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

sensitive existence, form the basis of my present 
ethical code, and fixed rule of action, which I 
deem the two polar stars of a moral galaxy, that 
claims our supreme attention, and ceaseless prac- 
tical obedience. 

SENSATION. 

Sensation is the parent of all mentality, be- 
cause the nervous mechanism of an animal forms 
the medium through which alone it can expe- 
rience a multiplicity of sensations, and hence 
aggregate ideas, while reminiscence is the reper- 
tory of the recoverable impressions, and which 
stored sensations and ideas constitute knowledge ; 
and what we term mind is neither more nor less 
than the whole of these recollected and recover- 
able sensations and ideas: therefore, those or- 
ganisms which are the most delicate, and sus- 
ceptible of feeling the greatest number of im- 
pressions, and so feeling them as to render them 
lasting and indelible, are necessarily the recep- 
tacles of the greatest minds. 

SENSES. 

That an animal has but one general sense is 
clear to me ; and when it is in a perfect and ac- 
tive state, I compare it to a man confined within 
a vessel, with jive small apertures, through the 
medium of which he exercises the aggregate or 
whole nervous system ; or abstractedly, through 
one he feels, another hears, a third sees, a fourth 
smells, and the fifth tastes. Every reflecting 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 153 

person may discover, that he cannot fully exer- 
cise all the branches at one and the same time, 
indeed, no two of them to perfection, or to their 
utmost individual capability. 

SENTENTIOUS. 

The tears of the truly compassionate convey 
to the tender and benevolent mind a degree of 
delicacy and sweetness not surpassed by the 
drops of dew that fall from the most pure and 
odoriferous rose. 

The heart that is truly susceptible of pure and 
natural love, is most assuredly susceptible, in a 
high degree, of every other good and amiable 
quality. 

An honest man is the noblest fruit of the joint 
powers of nature and human art or intellect ; but 
at present, through bad education and laws, he 
is also the rarest production. 

The essential principle of virtue is an innate 
and indestructible quality of the human heart ; 
but the practice of it is not hereditary : hence the 
folly, injustice, and miserable effects of heredi- 
tary wealth, titles, and dominion. 

The most philosophic, just, and wise, are 
those who love truth, and make the best possible 
use of the real advantages with which they are 
naturally endowed and circumstantially sur- 
rounded. 

Just punishment offends the feelings, but not 
the judgment, of the truly delicate, just, and hu- 
mane. 

They who would live wisely, and attain hu- 



154 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

man superiority, must neither yield to the force 
of public sentiment, nor the enslaving power of 
fashion ; neither must they follow the precept or 
example of any individual without the strictest 
examination and most mature reflection. 

Human intellectual power cannot be well cul- 
tivated and fully developed without the prompt 
and frequent use of the pen : I mean in the wise 
committal of original ideas and reflections to pa- 
per, in order that our own thoughts may receive 
future and minute reflection. 

The love of truth will generate all other im- 
portant virtues. Conscientious truth is not al- 
ways, or in every instance, real truth. A know- 
ledge and full conviction of this fact form a very 
important moral acquisition. 

Superstition enervates and enslaves the mind ; 
but philosophy, liberty, political and religious, 
renovate and expand it, and cause man to un- 
fold the inexhaustible powers of intellect, and, at 
the same time, necessarily impel him to the prac- 
tice of virtue, and ultimately lead him to feel the 
true dignity of his existence. 

They who love flattery, seldom possess suffi- 
cient delicacy and judgment to feel it as such 
when lavished on them. 

We rarely find great and valuable talents 
among the fashionable and polite. 

When we sacrifice the love of truth to the 
love of pleasing, we reduce ourselves to con- 
temptible objects, at least, in the view of reason 5 
morality, and justice. 

Tender feeling or benevolence, and a sound 
love of truth, make up the virtue, which is the 



SPECXLATIVE DICTIONARY. 155 

most amiable and excellent, and, indeed, is the 
all-sufficient one. 

Universal benevolence and general happiness 
being the good and wise man's desire and pur- 
suit, we should always keep a steady eye upon 
his modes of action. 

They who study and understand the import- 
ant relations of sensation, need nothing more to 
teach them their entire duty. And as men ad- 
vance in a true knowledge of nature, so will 
they, in the same ratio, approximate perfection 
and happiness. 

Argument ceases to be rational when our 
senses do not furnish evident grounds for rea- 
soning. The contemplation of the Book of Na- 
ture, or the surrounding existences, together 
with the circumstances of life, are alone suffi- 
cient to direct man in the true path of duty, and 
enable him to become both virtuous and wise. 

They who always reflect or reason well, can 
never experience repentance, which is a feeling 
that ought not to be esteemed a great virtue in 
any one, but a plausible confession of errour or 
vice. 

It may be well in many cases to forget and 
forgive injuries we have received, but we should 
never be ungrateful, and forget benefits which 
have been graciously bestowed. 

A man is philosophically and morally superi- 
our only in proportion to his spirit of opposition 
to, at least, a majority of the past and present 
principles and customs of society, and in the dis- 
covery and support or adoption of those which 
accord with nature and truth. 



156 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

The public do not distinguish and appreciate 
correctly, because they judge and determine 
merit to be in the ratio of wealthy influence or 
aristocratical birth, and a variety of other pomp- 
ous and extrinsic qualities ; while the only test 
or criterion whereby to estimate merit is the ra- 
tio of individual superiority. 

Regarding habits of clothing and dress, a wise 
and philosophic people will never allow the ratio 
of expense and show to surpass the ratio of com- 
fort and utility. 

Man should never mentally faint, but, under 
all circumstances, have confidence in the natu- 
ral strength of his own intellectual power, and 
exert every energy of his mind to weaken the 
force of his troubles, and despair not of render- 
ing them sometimes even parents of comfort, 
mental joy, and sublime gratitude. Gratitude, 
while under the guidance of sound judgment, is 
one of the brightest stars in the moral galaxy. 

SOUL. 

jWhat can the word soul mean more than 
vitality, or the living principle of animals? It 
is very unphilosophic to consider it synonymous 
with the noun mind ; if the term soul be capable 
of definition, it must mean something very dif- 
ferent from that of mind. 

SPECULATION {Creative). 

Presuming every animal and vegetable upon 
the globe to be simultaneously destroyed, and 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 157 

the earth calcined to a considerable depth, 
I would it be irrational to suppose, or believe, 
that from the action of the sun upon the vast 
quantity of elements which are now employed 
and identified in the animal and vegetable gen- 
era, would necessarily be re-arranged into simi- 
lar organic forms, through the operation of an 
essential principle of nature, which is, that mat- 
ter in the aggregate, while subject to specific 
actions, must exist under certain collective and 
congruous relations? Or, /would it be more 
consistent with the highest degree of chemical 
knowledge, to believe that the surface of the 
earth would remain a void, barren, desolate 
waste, after such universal calcination? ^Does 
not the existence of the ephemeral race, and the 
nature of some other animal organizations sup- 
port me in this hypothesis of spontaneous gene- 
ration? ^Are not these almost momentary be- 
ings new sensitive creations, or results of physi- 
cal necessity? Or, ^can it be rationally believed 
that they are all sexual, and had parents like 
themselves? Only glance at the results of what 
is sensibly termed a honey-dew; from it the 
leaves of every tree and plant within its reach 
become the cities of trillions of animated beings. 
Now, when we reflect, that previous to the fall 
of this parental element, or honey-dew, it must 
have been raised from "mother earth," or the 
surface of the terraqueous sphere, in primary 
particles or in atomic form, and, consequently, 
void of perceptive life. Thus we see by the 
concentration of these elementary corpuscles, vi- 
tal organisms are created or reproduced : then, 
14 



158 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

£ why should we doubt the possibility or proba- 
bility of a reproduction of other animals of no- 
bler species, and who are more, potent in their 
faculties? These, as well as many other modes 
of matter, it is true, are at present, impenetrable 
mysteries, but it is, in my view, highly probable, 
that from progressive thought, reflection, and 
science, in the lapse of time, these and many 
others at present hidden attributes of matter will 
be well understood ; still it is equally probable, 
that some of the operations of the elements may 
remain for ever unexcosritable. 

o 

SPECULATION (Solar). 

Although I maintain that the mundane 
sphere does not progress in its orbicular line 
from a projectile force, yet the effects are similar 
to what they might be under the influence of 
such a force, as the mass is a very dense body, 
and a perfect patient of rare gases, the atoms of 
which act vertically, or nearly so, upon one 
whole hemisphere at once ; and thus acting, with 
continual propulsive power, upon all quantities or 
numbers of co&cervated atoms, necessarily force 
them towards the centre of the planet: for those 
gaseous atoms of the solar vortex, which do not 
absolutely come in contact with either the sur- 
face of the earth, or its dense atmosphere, neces- 
sarily pass by it on all sides ; and thus complete 
a revolution, or an orbit, in less time (not space) 
than the glomerated mass of a planet does, al- 
though it (the planet) revolves at the same dis- 
tance from the sun. Hence, I conceive a cause 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 159 

of the centripetal force of all bodies upon the 
surface of the globe, or what is commonly called 
weight. Yet, on a first reflection, or view of this 
theory, a contrary effect might be reasonably ex- 
pected upon that hemisphere which is foremost 
in the orbit: but, after much reflection, I conceive 
that the intervention of the mass of the earth 
prevents dense bodies upon this hemisphere 
from losing the patiency they acquired from the 
solar vertical gases, while their own hemisphere 
was hindermost in the orbit. 

It seems evident, from the patiency of the 
waters of the great oceans, to the mundane and 
lunar fulciment or point of gyration, that the 
centripetal force, or weight of every atom of 
matter upon that hemisphere of the globe which 
faces the moon at full and change, must be con- 
siderably less than at any other time, as the wa- 
ters seem to retain more of the patiency of direct 
solar force than does the solid mass of the earth, 
for the oceans themselves, appear to be impelled 
to perform an orbit around the sun at the mun- 
dane and lunar gyration distance: hence the 
phenomena of the tides. 

SPEECH {Power of). 

Speech, or the vast articulative capability 
natural to human beings, is the primary faculty 
that principally distinguishes man from apes, 
baboons, and many other species of animals. 

Next to progressive articulation, the human 
hand gives its possessor a portion of physical 
superiority over all other known animals, the 



160 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

monkey species excepted; for, in relation to 
these, man's advantages are very trifling. With- 
out the power of communicating various sensa- 
tions and ideas, through the medium of speech, 
^in what fundamental attribute of man shall we 
discover an adequate means of developing any 
great superiority over several other species now 
in existence? 

Man's capacious and superiour memory, to- 
gether with his power of imagination, inven- 
tion, discovery, reflection, and design, all have 
their source in his capacity of receiving, at least, 
apart of the effects of the multifarious sensations 
and ideas of the present and past generations ; by 
the primary power of speech, and through the 
secondary medium of history. And, although 
many species of animals are endowed with most 
of these sensitive germs, yet not possessing a 
sufficient means of clearly communicating and 
retaining their affections and impulses, these 
animals can only act intuitively, when such im- 
pulses or incitations occur; consequently, they 
cannot progressively improve, or benefit like 
man, from the recorded sensations, ideas, and 
reflections of preceding generations. 

SPIRITS (Animal). 

It is not uncommon in society to hear per- 
sons saying to others, "keep up your spirits;" 
but they might as well say to a sick person, "be 
well :" as we have no more, or very little more, 
influence over our spirits than we have over our 
own health. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 161 

Flashy wit is one fruit of a good flow of spi- 
rits, but it is a species of felicity not often to be 
enjoyed by phlegmatic subjects; however, these 
individuals are generally the best and most use- 
ful reasoners. 

STREET-WALKING. 

If dancing-masters were to teach their pupils to 
be adroit, judicious, and accommodating in their 
corporeal turns and movements, while in the 
streets of large and crowded towns, they would 
thereby confer a pleasing benefit on the street 
thronging public. For instance, when moving 
upon comparatively narrow paved ways, and in 
the same direction of other persons, but whose 
tardy progress contrasted with the profluent steps 
of others, reader it absolutely necessary to pass 
them, at some point; so that, in order to make 
the passage facile to the entire circulating crowd, 
the duration of this passing period should be as 
short as possible, which may be easily effected, 
if the passing individual will only quicken his 
speed for a few moments at the passing juncture. 

There are a number of other desiderated street- 
movements, which cannot be easily pointed out, 
but which, a single judicious thought at the 
needed moment, will supply with the required 
agile step or accommodating turn. 

It is less sagacious, and worse than brutal, for 
a number of individuals to link and walk to- 
gether upon comparatively narrow paved ways, 
and thus occupy the whole breadth of the com- 
fortable path: leaving no space for any one to 
IF 



162 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

pass them; in consequence of which, all persons 
meeting, or requiring to move faster in the same 
direction, are obliged to turn off into the most 
rough and filthy part of the street,* in order to 
pass such amiable votaries of current gentility 
and fashionable politeness. 

That would be a good law, which should im- 
pose a fine on all persons for gossiping, idling, 
or in any way obstructing the public passage in 
populous or mercantile towns. It should also 
be finable for millers and bakers to squeeze be- 
tween decent people in crowded markets, streets, 
&c, while their clothes are covered with flour. 

Such individuals as are fond of taking the up- 
per hand of others, ought to make a point of walk- 
ing on that side of the street which gives them 
the right of doing so ; in place of being awk- 
ward and wilful impediments in the way of 
those who walk judiciously, and pass along 
without annoying any one, as all ought to do, 
while on the public thoroughfare. 

SUICIDE. 

£,Are the public sentiments correct or errone- 
ous upon the subject of suicide? Public opin- 
ion decides it to be an irrational or insane act. 
I What were the moral characters of the nume- 
rous individuals who have committed suicide 
within our own memory and knowledge? I 



* Thus well-paved streets really become the source of a 
larger amount of delay and annoyance than of speed and 
comfort, while frequented by such unthinking individuals, 
and subject to conduct even worse than barbarous. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 163 

believe, if we make an impartial and unpreju- 
diced review and examination of their circum- 
stances and characters, we must come to the 
conclusion, that, at least, eight out of ten sui- 
cides have been either of that class of persons 
which we term intellectually bright or morally 
good. 

That they were among the most sensitive and 
refined in regard to their feelings and disposi- 
tion towards others, cannot be denied : the very 
circumstances under which suicides have in 
general taken place, sufficiently proves this. 
How rarely do cruel and insensate murderers, 
or the most irrational and enormous criminals, 
evince a disposition to commit suicide. It is the 
hardened and vicious who are afraid to meet 
death ; while the affectionate, intellectual, and 
virtuous, commit suicide. In short, many of 
those who have committed suicide, were endued 
with all the good qualities that appertain to, or 
have hitherto been developed by human nature. 
I cannot see how a mad or irrational person can 
accomplish suicide ; for it appears evident to 
me, that the act is the result of a motive, which, 
of course, implies reasoning. If a few confined 
lunatics have destroyed themselves, I doubt not 
but the act w r as both devised and accomplished 
at lucid intervals. I know of no species of ani- 
mal less intellectual and rational than that of 
man ever arriving at a degree of suffering 
sufficient to produce self-annihilation ; although 
there are some kinds of inferiour animals who 
have sufficient wisdom, sympathy, or special 
pride, to induce them to kill, without delay, any 



164 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

of their own species, who may become severely- 
wounded. 

I never could trace the cause of a suicide to 
any unmixed physical or corporeal suffering. 
No ; it seems to be a species of mental or a more 
refined pain which induces the fatal act; for 
mental suffering, as well as mental joy, may be 
increased through the medium of a highly-culti- 
vated sensibility: so also does the cultivation of 
delicacy and intellectual power greatly increase 
the capacity for feeling corporeal pain and plea- 
sure. 

When persons are apprehensive that a suicide 
is premeditated, and they are desirous of prevent- 
ing its completion, they should endeavour to 
discover the operating cause; and having done 
this, effective means should be used to counter- 
act and remove the cause: watching and guard- 
ing, or any such means, will, in general, be found 
inefficient, beyond that of delaying the act, and 
extending the suffering of the individual. 

If a person, whose life is worth saving, medi- 
tates suicide, such a person will not feel hurt or 
offended should his friends inform him that they 
are apprehensive of such a consequence ; but, on 
the contrary, he would be soothed in listening 
to wise arguments and incitations against such 
an act. If the cause should arise out of circum- 
stances of a pecuniary nature, there is great 
probability of its being easily removed. 

If it should have its source in sexual love or 
jealousy, it may, in general, be removed. If the 
cause should spring from real or imaginary, 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 165 

personal deformity or defect, then, in this case, 
there can be but little chance of a removal. 

The prevalence of suicide among a whole 
people, is a demonstrating evidence of, at least, 
national honour and acute sensibility, combined 
with intellectual refinement: in truth, I might 
add, that it argues a very high degree of amiable 
delicacy. 

SUPERSTITION. 

Moral principle belongs inseparably to hu- 
man existence, and has its source in the na- 
ture of sensation, and is also co-extensive with 
it. Bat superstition is an extraneous appendage 
of human invention ; and is much more calcu- 
lated to deteriorate the base passions, than sub- 
due or improve them, because it is founded in 
errour, consequently, is productive of an indefin- 
ite number of discordant doctrines and opinions, 
which have unceasingly inspired its dupes with 
a spirit to persecute, tear, and destroy each other, 
merely because they could not theologically 
agree; and it is evident to a penetrating and 
deeply-reflective mind, that superstition is a most 
awful barrier to the progress of truth and genu- 
ine morality. For in the ratio of the waning in- 
fluence of superstition has been the pullulation 
of science and humanity, and the approach to a 
true knowledge of the sublime actions of ele- 
mentary matter, together with a glorious progres- 
sive march in the safe and sure course to gene- 
ral amelioration. 

True and correct morals are alwavs, and, to 



166 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

all persons, more or less attractive and lovely ; 
but superstition is disgusting and loathsome to 
all truly philosophic minds, or real pursuers and 
lovers of truth ; and without the love of truth 
there can he no great or exalted virtue. 

If true knowledge, wisdom, justice, humanity, 
and a sound love of truth, be desirable qualities 
and possessions in man, then we have ample 
reason to execrate superstition, as being the prin- 
cipal bane and destroyer of these qualities ; for, 
in all countries, priestcraft and religion* flourish 
in the ratio of ignorance, falsehood, and cruelty ; 
in short, nearly every species of vice and immo- 
rality ; for, to state naked truth, there is no nat- 
ural relation between morality and religion; 
but religion, being conscious of its own natural 
deformity, has artfully allied itself with morali- 
ty, and, through this unrighteous insinuation, 
has continually deceived the unthinking world. 

SUSCEPTIBILITY. 

All human kind are born without knowledge, 
virtue, or vice, and, indeed, without passions ; 
as the ivants of hunger, thirst, and genial tem- 
perature, &c, ought not to be considered any 
more than instinctive sensations. 

There are other physical wants, but which do 
not develope themselves until a considerable age 



* I cannot discover any essential difference between the 
nature or fundamental principles and tendency of Religion, 
and that of Superstition — that which is termed Natural Re- 
ligion, is neither more nor less than a moral feeling, or what 
might be called enthusiastic gratitude. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 167 

is attained, consequently they are interwoven 
with ideas and knowledge, more or less copious 
and influential, therefore may be justly termed 
passions and sentiments. But we are all born 
susceptible of an indefinite number of passions 
of both kinds, or such as will lead to virtue as 
well as to vice. And hence, whatever character 
we ultimately develope, depends entirely on the 
chain of exciting circumstances which has ac- 
companied our adolescence, or the most suscep- 
tible periods of our lives. If this position be ad- 
mitted, as it must be, sooner or later, the neces- 
sary conclusion is, that man, in a moral point 
of view, is a creature of accident and circum- 
stance; and, therefore, a good education in early 
life, when passions are easily formed, is of the 
very highest importance to individuals and to 
society. 

SYMPATHY {Hypothetical). 

The vivid sympathy which so often evinces 
itself, or takes place in congenial hearts and 
minds, when accidentally met, must arise (I 
think) from a rapid flow and permutation of 
similar volatile and drastic corpuscles by acutely 
acting upon the nerves, and thus producing 
sympathetic thoughts, actions, and ideas. As 
we are destitute of absolute knowledge in rela- 
tion to the real source of many of our vivid 
ideas, a philosophic reflection upon the above 
atomic action may probably lead to some useful 
discovery in regard to this interesting subject. 
Perhaps the following will serve as a faint illus- 



168 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

tration of the peculiar actions and results of 
subtle and volatile matter upon the organs of 
sense : — Suppose three men were to enter a room 
in which there is a putrid stench — each being 
possessed of equally pure and sensitive teeth — 
two of them having equally perfect and acute 
olfactory nerves, while the sense of smelling in 
the other is sufficiently imperfect to prevent him 
from discovering the stench; he is, nevertheless, 
(as well as the other two), quite sensible that his 
teeth have been affected since entering the place, 
but nothing more ; while the other two are per- 
fectly convinced of the nauseous effluvium 
which pervades the room, and thus, may be 
fully aware of the cause of the pain in their 
teeth; for a putrid effluvium will almost invari- 
ably produce a slight pain in delicate and very 
sensitive teeth. 

TASTE. 

There is much said in fashionable society 
about good and bad taste. But before individu- 
als praise or contemn the taste of others, they 
ought to know what constitutes the tests or 
means whereby to determine between good and 
bad taste. 

According to my judgment, the criterion of 
good and bad taste, in regard to habits, customs, 
and things of art, is, their compatibility or in- 
compatibility with nature. It cannot be good 
taste to admire art in those instances where it 
deteriorates the appearance, convenience, and 
the comforts presented by nature. It is any 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 



169 



thing but good taste to admire the action or mo- 
tions of a lady of small stature while walking, or 
rather striding, step for step, by the side of a man 
of full size and height. It cannot be good taste, 
because it is neither graceful, natural, nor con- 
ducive to comfort. If the sexes are so paired 
that one of them must step out of the natural 
pace in order to perform a graceful gait when 
coupled, it is the male, or the largest of the two, 
who ought to be the accommodating party; be- 
cause there is nothing very awkward or un- 
pleasant in a man's stepping a little within his 
natural or wonted pace, but the straddling fash- 
ion of the military inclined ladies is truly dis- 
gusting. 

Indeed, fashion rarely exhibits any good taste, 
nor is it likely that it should ; for good taste can- 
not change, but in the view of fools, to bad 
taste, and vice versa; and as fashion changes 
every day, it ought not to be supposed that there 
is such an inexhaustible store of good taste to be 
eternally coming into practice. 

It is intellectual or rational taste alone that 
here engages my attention, because over our 
physical taste we have but little influence, or 
power to change. 

TEACHING. 

The grand and paramount object with teach- 
ers in all arts and sciences ought to be, that of 
fixing their pupils in the most simple and useful 
modes of action and performance ; to establish 
them in personal habits that will best accord with 
15 



170 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. . 

the most perfect philosophy. The minds of a 
generation thus formed and fixed, through a na- 
tion, under a good climate and fertile soil, would 
realize a grateful and blissful existence for all 
sensitive beings, that move within the sphere of 
human influence. And it is extremely pleasing 
to reflect how easily such an all-important object 
might be attained: for it is more easy to frame 
and fix the minds of youth in a course of'moral 
truths, and natural principles, than it is to train 
and fix them in superstition, unnatural restraints, 
and absurd principles, which is the general prac- 
tice now pursued in educating youth. 

But the time is not far distant when a great 
change will be effected for the better : — when a 
political system and code of laws, cannot fail of 
being framed, by a people well educated, the op- 
eration of which will be in strict accordance 
with the real interests of truth, justice, and hu- 
manity. In short, when such habits and cus- 
toms, both general and individual, shall be 
established as will ensure the best possible re- 
sults. Indeed, a very few laws will suffice in 
this new, wise, and happy state of society. 

All teachers of youth ought to be politically 
independent, and, at least, moral philosophers. 

TESTINESS. 

Why nearly all highly sensible and judicious 
persons are, more or less eccentric, vain, jealous, 
passionate, or testy, may arise from their supe- 
riour susceptibility for feeling in the acmetic ra- 
tio, all the actions of surrounding circumstances ; 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 171 

and as their dealings and intercourse with a 
grovelling and superstitious public, necessarily 
yield them more painful or unpleasant sensa- 
tions than grateful ones, their temper is almost 
sure to become more or less acerbated. 

But, on the other hand, ^can we, or ought 
we, to feel more esteem for persons who, in 
reality, are little better than insensate, and incon- 
vertible fools, and who never evince either disap- 
probation or anger, when they clash with ava- 
ricious knaves, or unjust and absurd customs, 
than we do for those testy individuals ^ 

THANKSGIVING {General and Particular). 

As a child does not, and, indeed, cannot ask 
or desire its parents to produce its own sentient 
being, hence it cannot morally owe them any 
thing for the mere life which it was obliged to 
receive from the joint efforts of nature and sex- 
ual passions; and, just for the same reason, 
mankind cannot morally owe God any thing for 
their existence. If we were sensibly acquainted 
with the Deity, and should ask, and also receive 
from him that which we petitioned for, we should 
then, in each case, be under a moral obligation 
to him for all we possessed through these cir- 
cumstances and means. 

Some cause, or combination of causes, having 
obliged us to sustain sensitive existence, alto- 
gether independent of our will and wishes, it 
follows as a necessary consequence, that we 
cannot be under any obligation for it. 

Neither justice nor morality require thankful- 



172 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

ness for the enjoyment of rights of any kind ; 
privileges and special favours alone involve ob- 
ligation, and morally demand thanksgiving from 
the receivers and enters of them. 

THEISM. 

From profound reflection I am involuntarily 
led to conclude, that, if the system of the uni- 
verse were the production of an infinitely intelli- 
gent, beneficent, and almighty being, or power, 
every existence would essentially harmonize, 
and be in a state of physical, moral, and divine 
optimity ; but the fact is widely different ; as the 
observing and reflecting mind sees one portion 
of matter eternally acting upon other portions, 
and, in many instances, producing extensive 
physical evils, or destructions ; and from these 
result, subsequently, concatenations of painful 
sensation, which neither wisdom nor virtue can 
possibly escape, or jurisprudence prevent. In- 
deed, the nature and existence (and consequently 
inevitable painful subjection) of universal sensa- 
tion, is alone sufficient to demonstrate the bad 
foundation, or the irrationality of the hypothesis 
of an almighty, omniscient, and benevolent cre- 
ator and governor of the universe. 

But Theism is an awful barrier to the pro- 
gress of physical, as well as genuine moral 
knowledge, both in regard to individuals and to 
nations. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 173 

THEISTS. 

Theists after making the best use they are 
able, of the aggregate phenomena of the natural 
universe ; in support of their hypothesis, fanati- 
cally and exultingly adduce the greatest works 
of human art and genius, as a kind of corollary 
proof of the existence of a super-material power; 
^but what analogy can we rationally perceive 
between their assumed God. and human beings? 
How absurd it is to attempt to reason by analo- 
gy, upon the works of an infinite power, and 
those of a finite being like man. 

Man being only an organized portion of Mat- 
ter, and solely depending on other matter for 
the continuance of his sensitive existence, while 
in his works of art, he only places several por- 
tions of it together, in certain order, according 
to his caprice, or so as to answer some particu- 
lar purpose and useful end ; for the works of 
human art form a continuous chain of animal 
invention and progressive design, while nature 
produces and re-produces by its own fixed and 
inherent material energy, and entirely indepen- 
dent of art or design. 

Space and Matter being: essential existences, 
Motion appears to be an essential effect of these 
existences, and hence certain and successive 
modes of Matter become essential also ; there- 
fore, every thing that ispurely natural must ex- 
ist as it does; and I see nothing wonderful from 
its existing in one way or mode, more than in 
any other, since it must exist in some shape, 
mode, or character, and we are certain that it 
15* 



174 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

cannot exist in two modes at one and the same 
time. If planets ivere cubes in place of globes, 
all nature would be essentially different to what 
it is : and it being independent of art and de- 
sign, it must always be what it is. 

Design and art can appropriate parts of na- 
ture, but cannot in the least degree change a 
single principle of it. 

If men could be induced to reason soundly 
and fearlessly, they would soon extricate them- 
selves from a heterogeneous mass of errour and 
absurdity, and by their own individual reflective 
efforts, ultimately arrive at some of the most im- 
portant and sublime truths. 

THEOCRACY. 

The word theocracy does not represent any 
real existence, quality, or operation. It only ex- 
presses what a people may imagine, or believe, 
while under the influence of a profound igno- 
rance of the operations of matter in the eternal 
laboratory of space ; therefore, what the word 
Theocracy designates, may be justly termed an 
inexperimental sentiment. 

THIRST. 

I apprehend that most vegetables can grow 
and increase by multiple or compounded parti- 
cles of congenial and appropriate matter, while 
animals can probably only granulate by primary 
atoms of pabulous elements; and hence, perhaps, 
the prolific and genial effects of succulent food, 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 175 

and the wisdom of reducing some solid aliments 
to a fluid state before they are conveyed into the 
stomach : thus it is that I can account for the 
great and otherwise, to me, unaccountable thirst 
that almost uniformly results from eating a small 
portion of salted fish or flesh, where the real 
quantity of salt taken does not exceed a few 
grains, while as many penny-weights of common 
or table salt would not produce so great an ef- 
fect. I conceive, therefore, that the stomach 
does not reduce the gross salt to elementary 
atoms, consequently, it is not taken up by the 
small vessels, while that contained in the fish 
and flesh may be absorbed by them, and diffused 
through the system, purely on account of its 
corpuscular state. It is the imperceptible minu- 
tia of the elementary corpuscles of matter that 
render their actions so subtle, drastic, and diffi- 
cult to be understood throughout the operations 
of nature. 

THOUGHT. 

Thought is a most important mode to culti- 
vate, because profound thinking extends intel- 
lectual power and elevates mental conception ; 
while, from a justly-exalted mind springs ration- 
al pleasure, and mental enjoyment is the parent 
of almost every good and sublime idea. 
. At present, it appears to me that matter, in a 
simple state, is incapable of thought, unless ev- 
ery elementary atom be in some degree sentient, 
which, according to our present knowledge of 
animated nature, cannot be received as a truth, 
because we know of no existence that is capable 



176 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

of either thinking or feeling which is not com- 
posed of many parts. Cogitation seems to be 
entirely a result of a complicated combination of 
various organs, and which, however, mere mat- 
ter under peculiar circumstances of motion, is 
sufficiently plastic to congregate, arrange, and 
unite to that perfection which we behold around 
us. We can only reason well from what we abso- 
lutely know, and if we know any thing, we cer- 
tainly know that elements exist ; and deep re- 
flection upon this knowledge teaches us, that we 
ought to consider these elements to be essential 
existences. Farther consideration shows us, 
that what we term motion is also co-essential 
with these elements ; and hence various modes 
of matter are physically and essentially produced: 
therefore, we reason unwisely when we term 
such modes either wise or unwise productions, 
because they are not results of design or volition ; 
for we have no just ground to conceive intelli- 
gence independent of these elements, or what 
we call matter : therefore we are unwise, if we 
reason from intellectual analogy and adopt an 
hypothetical designer of what we term the natu- 
ral productions of matter, for we may perceive 
that all designing power must necessarily reside 
in a "portion of these essential elements ; conse- 
quently the hypothesis of an omnipotent design- 
er is truly absurd, because it requires division, 
and then makes a part to be superiour to the 
ichole by having to govern it. 

The potentiality of matter in the aggregate 
jjjay, probably, be the result of the compositive 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 



177 



property possessed by its various elementary 
corpuscles. 

TIDES {Equinoctial). 

The increased motion of the waters of the 
great oceans, at the equinoctial points of the 
earth's orbit, strengthens my former view of the 
cause of the tides ; for the primary power or 
force at these periods acts more directly east 
and west, than at any other part of the orbit : 
hence there is necessarily an increased oscilla- 
tion of the waters in the great oceans within the 
torrid and temperate zones ; consequently largei 
tides must occur at these seasons of the year. 
But these facts prove nothing in favour of an 
attractive principle in matter. See article At- 
traction. 

TIME. 

Some philosophers have asserted that what 
we call time has no existence independent of 
human conception, or that it is absolutely no- 
thing of itself. But in this respect, I dissent en- 
tirely from these philosophers ; for that which 
has a quality,* must also, in some relative de- 
gree, have an elementary existence. 

As matter cannot exist independent of space, 
neither can it exist and move without demon- 
strating the elementary nature of time ; there- 



* That time has a quality, is fully admitted by these same 
philosophers. 



178 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

fore, if we can make any intelligible use of the 
word ETERNAL, time evidently forms one of 
its elements. 

A particle of matter, an inch of space, and a 
moment of time, equally form portions of the re- 
volving existence of the eternal universe. 

I Does space exist ? yes ; then g can we con- 
ceive an instant ichen it did not exist ? no — 
^does time exist? /conceive so; then (can we 
conceive a period when it did not exist? /can- 
not. 

I Did, or can matter ever exist without evinc- 
ing the quality which we are now philosophi- 
cally obliged to concede to what / call the ele- 
ments of time ? The existence or non-existence 
of the human species cannot in the least alter its 
nature. 

Space proves its own existence in being occu- 
pied by matter, and the essential nature of time 
is demonstrated by the motion of matter ; be- 
cause it cannot shift from one part of space to 
another without requiring length, or quantity of 
what we understand by the word time. 

I Can we possibly conceive a period when the 
quality which we allow time to possess, did not 
operate? Or, to glance forward, ^will matter 
ever exist independent of the present eifects of 
periodic cognation ? Or, ^can the universe con- 
tinue to revolve without the quality which is 
now ceded to time, being equally important^ 
evincible, and demonstrable ? 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 179 

TOASTS 

(Political, sentimental^ and humane). 

May every man receive his deserts, whether 
the fruits of virtue or of vice. 

May all live happily, who wish and strive to 
make others so. 

May sensitive existence cease, when it yields 
more pain than pleasure. 

May all designed actions yield no pleasure to 
the performers of them, while they are produc- 
tive of painful sensations to others. 

May the Printing Press speedily become 
completely emancipated from every fettering in- 
fluence. 

May true liberty and. reciprocal justice soon 
become the characteristic cement of every sys- 
tem of laws, and the distinguishing practical 
features of every political government. 

When knaves unite and form links to chain 
the expanding mind, may they, at the same time, 
also, fabricate a tissue, which will inevitably 
complete their own slavery or annihilation. 

May the time quickly arrive, when every man 
will rise superiour to the disgraceful sphere of a 
slave to undue power and tyranny. 

May they be unsuccessful pursuers of felicity, 
who strive to subvert the present bold efforts to- 
wards the development and adoption of those 
principles which are so naturally adapted for 
producing universal liberty and happiness. 

May they lack all enjoyment, who strive to 
check the progress of useful knowledge. 



180 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

May just and wise laws soon become as gen- 
eral as the human species, and republican liber- 
ty as universal as the rays of the sun upon the 
face of the earth. 

May no one's sport yield him any pleasure, if 
it be in the least degree productive of pain to 
any other being. 

May we always spend our time wisely, profi- 
tably, and happily. 

May we feel our own happiness to be depend- 
ant on the happiness of others. 

May every man love the woman who cannot 
help loving him, and vice versa. 

May we always feel the greatest pleasure in 
the performance of those acts which yield the 
most enjoyment to others. 

May we not outlive the means of comfort and 
happiness. 

May we never crave unreasonable things, nor 
lack those that are naturally good for us. 

May we have the good sense to despise the 
fashionable vices of others, rather than be am- 
bitious of imitating them. ■ 

May all our original sentiments merit esteem, 
and our peculiar habits be worth imitating. 

May the time soon arrive when every human 
heart will glow with rational gratitude. 

May that period of intellectual splendour, and 
bright rectitude of public reasoning soon arrive, 
which will justly estimate the value of every 
custom, thing, and operative principle, and dis- 
entangle purity from corruption, truth from er- 
rour : and morality from the clog of religion. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 181 

TORTURE, 

The arbitrary power with which captains of 
even merchant ships are invested while at sea, is 
truly dreadful. In place of giving the captain 
and mates the sole power of trying and deter- 
mining the species and amount of punishment 
to be inflicted on any accused individual while 
at sea, I will here suggest the propriety and jus- 
tice of obliging the captain to summon the entire 
ship's company to see and hear the examination 
or trial, of persons accused of misconduct and 
crime. After all the evidence on each side has 
been gone through, the remainder of the crew, 
or all who did not give evidence on either side, 
should be furnished with a black, and a white 
ball, with which to vote in secret, according to 
each individual's conscientious Conviction, whe- 
ther in support of the innocence or guilt of the 
accused party. Not less than two thirds of the 
whole number of voters should be allowed to 
constitute a positive or punishable verdict. 

In order to guard against the evils which 
might arise ouv of partiality on one hand, and 
ill-will or revenge on the other, I would have 
the kind and the amount of punishment also 
determined by the ballot. 

Whipping is a species of punishment which 
ought to be resorted to for all acts of cruelty ; 
whether appertaining to human beings or infe- 
riour animals ; but to no other kind of crime is 
whipping or indeed any mode of torture justly 
applicable. This subject merits the most seri- 

16 



182 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

ous attention of philanthropists, legislators, and 
the rest of society. 

TRINITY. 

There seems to be the closest analogy be- 
tween what is generally termed Fire, and what 
we understand by the word Vitality or Sensa- 
tion. Fire does not appear to be matter, any 
more than does Sensation, yet we have no just 
grounds to suppose that either can exist sepa- 
rate from, or independent of it. Certain modes 
of matter are essential for the production of the 
phenomenon of Fire, just as modification or or- 
ganization is essential for the production of the 
phenomenon of Sensation, and its adjuncts, re- 
miniscence, and intelligence. But, as intellect 
has not yet discovered how its parent (Sensa- 
tion) comes into being, I will here assume Trin- 
itarian reasoning, and thereby form a Trinity, 
which I deem superiour and better founded than 
that of the Christians ; — Firstly, we have God- 
Matter, secondly, God-Fire, thirdly, God-Sensa- 
tion. Thus, we have three Gods, yet there is 
but one God, which is Matter; because God- Fire, 
and God-Sensation cannot exist without God- 
Matter, but we can, at least, rationally suppose 
God-Matter able to exist without either God-Fire 
or God-Sensation. 

TRUTH (Love of). 

I pursue truth with an irresistible desire, and 
love it with an ardour of the highest degree, 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 183 

wherever and whenever I can discover it ; and, 
on the contrary, with an equal degree I detest 
errour and imposture wherever and whenever I 
can detect them. 

The love of truth will generate all other im- 
portant virtues, consequently it is of the highest 
importance. An honest man feels a considera- 
ble gratification in speaking the truth, although 
he may, at the same time, be strongly apprehen- 
sive that the exposition will militate greatly 
against his pecuniary interest 

Those who have no love for truth are also 
void of virtue, because persons living in circles 
of deceit and a multiplicity of other vices, with- 
out the love of truth, will assuredly become pa- 
tients and agents of falsehood, and, consequently, 
easy prey to all other vices, and ultimately pre- 
pared for committing the greatest crimes. 

A reflecting individual of refined sensibility, 
who will freely speak or publish all his impor- 
tant thoughts, whether these are true or false, is 
to the world, correctly speaking, a valuable char- 
acter, because some of his thoughts, doubtless, 
will be found true, and the promulgation of 
which must prove beneficial to society, while 
those that are false will excite other persons to 
reflect and refute them; thus to demonstrate 
floating opinions, both true and false, is an act 
of the very highest consequence, both in morals 
and physics. 

But we should not always say all we think of 
persons, because Ave do not always know to be 
true what we think of them: yet we cannot do 
harm to others by saying all we think of things, 



184 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

customs •, and subjects, that are of a philosophic 
nature. 

UNDEFINABLE. 

Time, space, and matter, in their aggregates, 
are each existences without any analogy, and, 
consequently, totally undefin able: yet, it would 
be unphilosophic to view and consider them in 
any other light than as eternal or uncaused ex- 
istences ; yet, however, they are not all three 
alike ideally independent existences, because 
matter cannot exist without space; but I can 
conceive space without matter. 

UNGRACIOUS. 

It is very ungracious to delay the execution 
of a promised gratuitous performance, in pre- 
ference to one for which we are to be paid : — 
And they, whose rule it is to differ from this 
principle of action, deserve not to be esteemed 
either trusty, amiable, or honest. 

UNIFORMITY (Terraqueous). 

If the terraqueous surface of our globe were 
divided into equal alternate and parallel belts, or 
interminable mundane circles, lying perfectly 
longitudinal, w r e should then be almost, if not 
entire, strangers to hurricanes and blasting 
winds, or violent gaseous currents, except some 
unusual disturbances at the equinoxes. And 
there wmild either be no tides at all, or a tre- 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 185 

mendous one, extending from the equator be- 
yond the tropics every twenty-four hours, and 
something more than a half, or every time the 
moon would be vertical to the same degree of 
longitude. I am apprehensive, however, that 
there would not be more than twelve tides dur- 
ing each lunar month — six at the full moon, and 
six at the change. But if these equal strips of 
land and water were to lie in a latitudinal direc- 
tion, and reciprocally decrease in breadth from 
the line towards the poles, until the land termi- 
nated in points, and the waters in circular seas 
around the poles, it appears highly probable to 
me, that in this case, there would be, at full and 
change, a slight motion, yet, however, a consid- 
erable accumulation of water or tide upon the 
equatorial line every time the moon would be 
vertical to each strip of water ; that is, I mean, 
about seven tides at the full moon, and the same 
number at the change. 

If this latitudinal terraqueous uniformity were 
the actual state of the surface of the mundane 
sphere, its climatic operations and productions, 
from one pole to the other, would be incalcu- 
lably more bland and munificent than they can 
be under the existing division ; for all vegetation 
would then display a degree of vigorous splen- 
dour, perfection., and abundance, hitherto un- 
known. And hence, too, the physical, intellec- 
tual, and moral condition of the human race, 
and, indeed, the whole of sensitive existence 
could not fail of arriving at a state eminently 
superiour to what it is at present. In fact, such 
a revolution of the terraqueous surface would 
16* 



186 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

necessarily produce a real and substantial mil- 
lennial. 

VERACITY {Clerical). 

We should not place superiour confidence in 
the opinion, statement, or affirmation, of reve- 
rend gentlemen, upon any important moral or 
political subject, without first giving the matter 
a very close and minute examination ; because 
the clergy, as a body, are, and always were 
greatly interested in the support of systems and 
combinations of errour, as well as rites and cus- 
toms of vast evil tendency. 

VERIDICAL (Unpopular). 

Although I am aware that it is very unpopu- 
lar to speak naked truth in regard to religion of 
any kind, wherever it is at present established ; 
yet, the love of truth impels me to assert, that 
even the very essence of it, or a concentration 
of the best, or rather least impure and baleful 
parts of all religions, would form only a hetero- 
geneous mass of irrationalities ; which must be 
viewed by true philosophy, as rites, dogmas, te- 
nets, and customs, too absurd and pernicious, for 
retaining either the credence or respect of one 
who loves truth and enjoys the exercise of a re- 
flective mind. 

When a single ray of good and fearlessly lib- 
eral sense bursts upon, and possesses the mind 
of a deeply reflective man, he will soon be ena- 
bled to detect the fraud of religion ; and hence. 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 187 

ere long, extricate himself from its goading and 
lugubrious thraldom. 

I believe religion to be the most deceptive 
scheme, and greatest curse that ever afflicted 
the human race; because it does, and always 
did, produce irreconcileabie and implacable ha- 
tred between nations, neighbours, and even the 
nearest and dearest relations; and has ever op- 
posed the means best calculated to develope and 
extend the highest interests of intelligent beings. 
And we may be assured, that the influence of 
those theological systems which have produced 
so many moral evils, in times past, and which 
now sway the multitude, will continue to en- 
gender vice and misery in society, so long as 
priestly influence and superstitious faith shall 
exist ; for while the reflective powers of the hu- 
man species remain what they are, there will be 
a militating diversity of opinion, at least, upon 
all theological hypotheses; and [ where is the 
system of religion, I should be glad to know, 
that is capable of any thing resembling demon- 
stration '? 

If mankind had studied Nature, which should 
be viewed as the best or only guide in pursuing 
moral truth, and, indeed, every kind of valu- 
able knowledge, they never would subsequently 
have shed blood, and sacrificed human life, un- 
der the idea of pleasing a being that never had 
an existence but in a dark imagination; and 
which crude and barbarous fancy sprang from 
their ignorance of nature ; and, let it be remem- 
bered, that it is this ignorance of Nature that 
constitutes the real source of theological errours 



188 SPECULATIVE DICTlONARl*. 

and, in truth, of all religions ; while, on the con- 
trary, a correct knowledge of Nature, is the real 
parent of civilization and genuine morality ; and 
wherever true civilization and an exalted virtue 
shall extensively characterize society, religion 
will then lose its cfe-moralizing hold, and cease 
to sway and enslave mankind. Be not alarmed, 
reader, at uncommon words and strange ideas, 
even if thou art one of Faith's most timid dupes, 
but henceforth boldly pursue truth for thyself, 
and remember, that if man has a right and the 
power to investigate, examine, and admire, what 
are called the beautiful arrangements of creation, 
and the perfections of all he finds around him; 
he has also, by the same law of reasoning, a right 
to examine and depreciate or contemn the pal- 
pable evils which necessarily result from a num- 
ber of these natural existences, and artificial es- 
tablishments which beset him, and too often 
frustrate his best and most virtuous designs. 
For although the physical arrangements of na- 
ture appear to us harmonious and beautiful, 
yet these, in their operation, sorrowfully affect 
us, when justly reviewed in regard to their in- 
evitable effects upon the moral condition of sen- 
sitive beings. 

In all probability these remarks will be con- 
sidered impious, by those who are merely super- 
ficial and imbecile reasoners, or by those, who 
impose restraints on our reasoning powers, and 
declare our examinations and reflections impious 
and horrid, if they proceed beyond a certain point, 
and which point must be determined by their own 
dogmatical, bigoted, and contracted views : but 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 189 

to allow such a limited range of reasoning to be 
just and rational, would be only yielding cow- 
ardly to imposture or superstitious imbecility. 
For, if we set theological and dogmatic limits to 
the boundary of our reasoning, it would be far 
better not to reason at all ; as thought and reflec- 
tion cannot acknowledge any definite limitation 
when once excited into activity. 

Doubtless man has increased the catalogue of 
moral evils in the world, through his supersti- 
tious or sophisticated habit of reasoning; but, 
I who will evince the ignorance, and have the 
effrontery to say, that he is the sole author of 
the long list of evils which every where exist, 
and, more or less, embitter the life of every spe- 
cies of intelligent existence ? 

VITALITY. 

7 ; What is vitality? It maybe aptly termed 
the moving principle of the animal machine. 

From observation, experience, and mature re- 
flection, I am led to conclude that it vitality be 
not entirely a property of elementary particles, it 
certainly is absolutely dependant on compound 
matter for its development and existence. 

Vitality is the immediate source of intuitive 
consciousness and reminiscence; which last are 
the parents of the highest degree of known in- 
telligence, or intellectual power. If it should be 
demanded of me, how I account for the exist- 
ence of vitality, I would answer, that I conceive 
it to be caused by a powerful chemical and me- 
chanical or galvanic action, and re-action of 



190 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

elementary fluids, through the medium of a pe- 
culiar combination of consistent matter, which 
is presented to us in the organisms of animated 
nature ; but this, 1 confess, is neither proving 
nor clearly explaining the subject. Indeed, if I 
could clearly and fully explain how vitality is 
effected, doubtless I should then be able to form 
an animal structure, and endow it with vitality. 
If the corpuscles of matter do not possess the 
properties of sensitiveness and perceptivity, f how 
can they feel pain and pleasure, and be st/bjects 
of torture from extremes of temperature, &c.? 

In fact, all philosophic reflection upon this 
head, tend to force a conviction, that vitality is 
a consequence effected entirely by the composi- 
tive aptitude of elementary matter ; for, when 
various primary particles are in a state of per- 
mutation, and also subject to certain circum- 
stances of excitement, temperature, &c, they 
chemically act upon each other, and mechani- 
cally arrange themselves into various organic 
forms ; or what, in other words, may be correct- 
ly termed galvanic machines ; as there exists the 
closest analogy between the manifestation of vi- 
tality, and the exhibition of galvanic action : — 
For example, a young animal being formed by 
the plastic power of nature, and exposed to the 
affections of the potent elements of oxygen and 
nitrogen ; the essential heat, or high tempera- 
ture of the internal parts of the galvanic fabric, 
necessarily excites through the passage of the 
larynx a copious concentration of the surround- 
ing oxygen ; while, at the immediate succeeding 
instant, the ambient nitrogeneoiis atoms are 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 191 

strongly excited to combine with the oxygen, 
which now sates the blood that presents itself at 
the entire exterior surface of the animal, and 
which being thus charged with nitrogen, neces- 
sarily rushes back to the centre of the galvanic 
fabric ; hence, an oscillation, or action and re- 
action of the blood and other important fluids is 
kept up throughout the animal machine, and 
this galvanic affection constitutes vital activity; 
and hence follows as adjuncts, perception, intui- 
tive consciousness, &c. 

Space being replete with various matter, and 
as it is possessed of drastic relative properties, or 
creative potentiality, it must necessarily produce 
phenomena in the unlimited laboratory, space : 
and hence it is that the sagacious and truly ra- 
tional mind, sees not a need for an immaterial or 
even intelligent cause of the various natural iden- 
tities which from time to time compose the mate- 
rial universe. We know that space and time are 
and must be co-existences with matter, but we 
cannot define them, because we are as yet un- 
able to explain any inherent properties in them. 
^Can as much be said in favour of the existence 
of an omnipotent immaterial causation 3 

WEATHER {European). 

When I view and consider the geographical 
situation of Britain, I am led to conclude, that it 
is perfectly rational to expect northerly and 
easterly winds, and bad weather in the spring of 
the year. The vast quantity or undue portion 
of fluid, fixed in snow and ice, upon the surface 



192 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

of the north of Europe, during the early part of 
the winter, is one cause, I think, of there being 
in England, much warm, yet boisterous and 
rainy weather at this season: because, from the 
region where water is copiously and rapidly 
evaporating, to that where it is condensing, there 
must necessarily be a strong gaseous current. 
And, doubtless, the principal part of the water 
that falls in rain and snow upon the north of 
Europe, proceeds from the exhalations of the 
Atlantic Ocean, which, in part, accounts for the 
prevalence of south-westerly winds in the fall of 
the year. While, on the contrary, about the 
time the sun reaches the spring equinox, or re- 
appears to the north pole, the undue or great 
accumulation of frozen fluid is rapidly dissipated 
by solar influence, and now flies in all directions, 
and, as it were, endeavours to restore the equi- 
librium of the transitive matter of the globe. 

The main causes of the prevalence of south- 
westerly winds on the French and British coasts, 
are, the Gulf Stream, and the great expanse of 
ocean in that direction ; for in that quarter, the 
ocean must be rapidly and copiously evaporating, 
and, consequently, impetuously driven to a more 
rare and cold region, either land or water, and 
there condensed, which then necessarily regress- 
es to the sotfth-west again in the shape of water, 
but in a more tardy and regular manner. 

The transitive action of the tides is a cause 
of some local changes of iveather. In particu- 
lar parts of the world, the rapid and prodigious 
motion of the waters, which constitute th& ebb 
and flow of the tides, I conceive to be a principal 



SPECULATIVE 9ICTI0NARY. 193 

cause of the sudden changes, violent winds, and 
tempestuous weather, which so forcibly charac- 
terize various districts of the terraqueous sphere. 
The alternate immersion and baring of rocks, 
sands, and extensive tracts of the surface of the 
globe by the ebb and flow of the tides, must 
tend to produce local changes in both wind and 
weather. 

WILL (Free). 

^Has man a free will? All moralists will ad- 
mit that he performs actions from volition ; but 
£can he will without a motive? 

If he cannot will without a motive, then the 
essential question is, ^can he create motives? 
If it can be shown that he cannot create motives, 
it is also clear that he must be void of free will. 
The vital importance of this problem may not, 
at a first glance, forcibly strike even the keen 
perception of a grave moral philosopher; but, 
after due reflection, the long catalogue of rami- 
fied evils will become apparent that have sprung 
from the various conflicting dogmas and opin- 
ions that have been founded upon this hypo- 
thetical attribute of man ; which, if demonstrat- 
ed, as I presume it may be, the benefits that must 
accrue to general society from it, will, in the se- 
quel, be found incalculable. 

Wishing in vain, or fervently wishing to per- 
form, without possessing the power to accom- 
plish the object desired, seems to me almost a 
positive proof, that man has neither a free will, 
nor the ability to create motives. Man's vo- 
17 



194 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

Htions are governed and determined by varied 
fortuitous excitements; and until he has learnt 
to cultivate reflection, he must inevitably be the 
patient of his passions : yet he may be so much 
improved by reasoning, as to render his volitions 
independent of his passions or gross physical in- 
citations, but I cannot allow that he can ever 
possess a free will. For when he has arrived 
at his moral zenith, his volitions are then gov- 
erned by long trains of reasoning, which trains, 
however, are not the entire fruits of his own 
will,* but accidental motives for reasoning; aaid 
this series of mental impellents at length brings 
him to a state of patiency to reason, in place of 
remaining a slave to his gross physical impulses : 
which state of moral imbecility must be the con- 
dition of every one who does not cultivate reflec- 
tion. 

Persons who are in a state of patiency to rea- 
son, or the eductions of sound reflection, become 
so through necessary or involuntary causes, just 
as those who are patients to their gross physical 
passions remain so from necessity ; for there is 
no free will in either case. Had their suscepti- 
bilities and excitations been alike, and all their 
circumstances perfectly similar, then they would 
each and all be in precisely the same ratio of pa- 



* Indeed, I consider what is termed will to be of so secon- 
dary a nature, that it cannot have even an existence until 
reasoning has been exercised, for those actions which are 
purely intuitive, or consequences of sensitive impulses, do 
not merit to be termed volitions. 

Many persons, in speaking of the will, confound it and the 
passion of desire, together; and thus they necessarily retain 
a very confused idea of the subject. 






SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 195 

tiency to reason. Hence, in regard to crimes, 
he who has a correct view of necessity, cannot 
with complacency inflict punishment even upon 
those whose guilt is evident and demonstrable, 
because to him those laws only are truly philo- 
sophic and desirable, which, through a just prin- 
ciple of enforcement, have a tendency to restrain 
and prevent crimes ; therefore he feels due sym- 
pathy towards the misguided and unfortunate, 
and affectionately pities, and his heart (not his 
judgment and practice) freely forgives one who 
has through nescience done him an injury. 

Regarding words, or utterance, and silence, 
we have the semblance of liberty, or what is 
termed free will ; and, in reality, we may, per- 
haps, have as much free agency, in this particu- 
lar branch of moral conduct, as may render it 
just to stamp our utterance or silence in respect 
to particular matters, with the appellation of 
merit or demerit, as regards the wisdom or folly 
of our volitions upon these matters ; but in re- 
gard to our feelings, opinions, convictions, and 
belief, we are ever under the influence of an ab- 
solute necessity. Indeed we are, in all instan- 
ces, perfect patients of the various circumstances 
that surround and affect us. 

YOUTH (Advice to). 

Ere I commit to the press the last article of 
this little work, that love of truth, justice and 
humanity, which ever prompts my designs and 
governs my actions, inspires me with a desire to 
say a few words to the youthful of every class, 



196 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

a portion of whom, I trust, will deign to give 
due attention to one whose reflections and expe- 
rience qualify him to give good advice, and 
who, also, fervently wishes the whole of his 
species to become virtuous and happy. 

How vastly important are the moments of 
youth, because they constitute the best, if not 
the only time for the acquirement of every thing 
that can elevate and ennoble the human charac- 
ter. 

Yes, this is the fit period of your existence, 
not only for attaining valuable knowledge and 
securing to yourselves virtue, wisdom, and last- 
ing felicity, but now, also, is the season in which 
you must be wary and ever on your guard lest 
you acquire and become fixed in the foolish 
habits and vicious customs of the society which 
surround you ; for, whether you know it or not, 
it is a sad truth, that, for one wise and virtuous 
individual that is to be found in the current 
pursuits of life, you will meet with, at least, nine 
who are either foolish or vicious. Therefore, 
avoid as far as possible all intimacy and com- 
munion with such individuals, that thereby you 
may remain secure from the contamination of 
their follies and vices ; for let it be remembered, 
that you id ere born free from vice, and also void 
of virtue ; hence, it should be your assiduous 
study to acquire the latter and avoid the former. 

Then in order to escape the evil, and attain 
the good, my advice to you is, strive to gain a 
taste and preserve a zest for serious thought and 
deep reflection, while youth, health, vigour and 
vivacity flow through your sentient frame ; for 



SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 197 

when youth is past, the animal spirits begin to 
droop rapidly ; fail not, then, to appreciate your 
present, which, if once lost, must hence become 
irrecoverable advantages. Then deceive not 
yourselves, but remember that if you defer the 
acquisition of valuable knowledge, wise and 
virtuous habits, until mature age, you will la- 
bour under the double disadvantage of learning 
slowly, and forgetting nearly as fast as you learn. 

Remember that early habits of industry, re- 
tirement, and sound reflection, will enable you 
to be, and feel much more independent, exalted 
and happy, than can the mere possession of 
wealth and the ability of moving in the giddy 
circles of pomp and fashion. 

Beyond the necessaries of life, it is of little 
consequence how small may be the pecuniary 
means of the habitually industrious, reflective 
and wise, for they, at least, will always have a 
full and perfect library around them, which 
comprises the most valuable of all books, I mean 
the great volume of Nature. Do not doubt the 
truth of this statement, nor lose sight of its great 
and paramount importance, but ever be assured 
that the pure study of Nature, of all other stud- 
ies, is the most important, for it will never in- 
spire you with fanaticism and an evil spirit, nor 
will it ever mislead you ; but, on the contrary, 
the contemplation of Nature, must always tend 
to humanize, suavify and exalt your character. 

If you enjoy good health, and possess a medi- 

ocrite share of intellectual capability, and begin 

in early life to be studious, thoughtful and re- 

flective ; by thirty years of age, each of you may 

17* 



198 SPECULATIVE DICTIONARY. 

have become like a host in valuable knowledge, 
mental power, and moral influence ; and, conse- 
quently, will have established yourselves in 
principles that have the immoveable rock of 
truth for their basis. 

A gentleman being in company w r ith a Sage, 
inquired of him how he should educate his son, 
when the Sage quickly replied, 

" If you would wisely teach your son, 

His youthful mind well store 
With physical knowledge, 

Mingled well with all moral lore." 

Since you have had the moral courage to 
read this short address, I am desirous of direct- 
ing your especial attention to the following ar- 
ticles in this work : — 

Caution, Censure, Conscience, Drinking, 
Education, Fashion, Friendship, Happiness, 
History, Hurry, Interest, Labour, Man, Mind, 
Penmanship, Philosophy, Privilege, Promises, 
Reflection, Religion, Rights, Sententious, Taste, 
Teaching, Toasts, Will. 

ZENITH {Polar). 

If the north star be exactly in the pole's ze- 
nith, either on the shortest or the longest day 
of the year, it certainly cannot be so situated 
at any other period of the Earth's annual 
journey; unless this same star be, at least, five 
hundred and seventy millions of miles in cir- 
cumference, or one hundred and ninety millions 
in diameter. 

FINIS. 






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